Submit your words to the Moth Nature Writing Prize

Moth by Judy Darley

The Moth Magazine invites you to enter the Moth Nature Writing Prize. The deadline for entries of nature-inspired short stories, non-fiction and poems is 15th September 2022.

The judge is Max Porter. His Sunday Times bestseller Lanny was longlisted for the Booker Prize and the Wainwright Prize and shortlisted for the Waterstones and Foyles Book of the Year. His first novel, Grief is the Thing with Feathers, won the Sunday Times/Peter, Fraser + Dunlop Young Writer of the Year and the Dylan Thomas Prize, and was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Goldsmiths Prize.

Max says: “‘If you are engaged with being alive on this planet just now … and you are not terrified about the future half the time, you are not paying attention.”

The Prize will be awarded to the writer of the short fiction, non-fiction or poem that the judges deems to best combine exceptional literary merit with an exploration of the writer’s relationship with the natural world.

The prize is open to anyone over the age of sixteen, as long as the work is original and previously unpublished. Your submitted work must be no longer than 4,000 words.

Prizes

The winning entry will be published in the winter issue of The Moth.

The winner will receive €1,000 and a week-long stay at Circle of Missé creative retreat in the most southern part of the Loire Valley.

There is a fee of €15 per entry.

Visit www.themothmagazine.com for full details.

Got an event, challenge, competition or call for submissions you’d like to draw my attention to? Send me an email at judydarley (at) iCloud (dot) com.

This week I’m reading…

Christmas 2016 haul by Judy DarleyI got a rather excellent haul of books this Christmas, including Kate Atkinson’s beautiful companion book to Life After Life, A God in Ruins, and Rainbow Rowell’s gritty nostalgic Eleanor and Park.

The latter of these I devoured in less than a week, the former I’m mid-way through, but being away this week (in Iceland) I opted to bring the three slimmer volumes with me – The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers (thanks, Emerald Street, for the suggestion), Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter, and Tales from Nowhere (Lonely Planet Travel Literature).

So far, each is providing me with moments of magic, immersion and intrigue, and each could not be more different from the others. The perfect travel reads.

What are you reading? I’d love to know. I’m always happy to receive reviews of books, art, theatre and film. To submit or suggest a book review, please send an email to Judy(at)socketcreative.com.