The Forward Prizes for Poetry invites entries

Arnos Vale trees cr Judy Darley

More than thirty years after its launch, the Forward Prizes for Poetry welcome submissions from editors and publishers of books, magazines, online journals and competitions, published in the UK or Republic of Ireland, including works from the British Isles.

The submission deadline for all online entries is 4th March 2024.

There are four prize categories:

The Forward Prize for Best Collection

A prize of £10,000 will be given to the author of the best collection of poetry published in the UK or Republic of Ireland between 19th September 2023 and 18th September 2024.

The Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection

A prize of £5,000 will be given to the author of the best debut collection of poetry published in the UK or Republic of Ireland between 19th September 2023 and 18th September 2024.

The Forward Prize for Best Single Poem – Written
A prize of £1,000 will be given to the author of the best written single poem that has been published in a newspaper, periodical or magazine in the UK or Republic of Ireland between 5th March 2023 and 4th March 2024, or has been the winner of a poetry competition with a prize awarded between the same dates.

The Forward Prize for Best Single Poem – Performed

A prize of £1,000 will be given to the author of the best new performance or a new poem to camera filmed between 5th March 2023 and 4th March 2024.

This prize category views “performance” as the act of a poet inhabiting a poem using their voice and the body. Though the poem may also be published in written form, this category is not simply for a poet reading their poem, but for the delivery of a poem that is crafted and shaped with an eye to engaging a viewing audience, whether it be down a lens or sitting in a venue. The performance should make the poem come alive in a new and exciting way and be an authentic experience of a single live moment rather than a tailored, edited film. They say: “We invite submissions that push the boundaries beyond the written form and give a different experience to simply reading a poem.”

The Forward Prize for Best Single Poem – Performed, is the only Forward Prizes category that allows for self-submission. Only one submission, which must not exceed five minutes in length, may be entered per poet.

Note this is not a poetry film competition; the poem must be filmed in a single take without a professional filmmaker/filtering or editing the final submission. The only tools to be used are the poet’s voice and body, no other instruments, music, or technology should be included (though poets can use their voice in any manner they choose, including singing, rapping, beat boxing).

Find the full entry guidance here.

Got an event, challenge, competition, opportunity or call for submissions you’d like to draw attention to? Send me an email at JudyDarley (@) ICloud (dot) com.

Enter the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award

Arnos vale portal. Photo by Judy Darley. A natural formation of growing wood or vine that seems to hold a circle of light.

The Aesthetica Creative Writing Award celebrates outstanding short fiction and poetry from around the world. The deadline for entering the award is 31st August 2023, making this the perfect time to get polishing your poetry and prose.

Prizes include publication within Aesthetica Creative Writing Anthology plus £2,500 for the winner of each category. Winners will receive:

  • A Five-Day Course from Arvon (Poetry & Fiction Winners)
  • One year print subscription to Granta (Poetry & Fiction Winners)
  • One year digital subscription to Mslexia (Poetry & Fiction Winners)
  • Six-Week Writing Poetry Course from Curtis Brown Creative (Poetry Winner)
  • Full membership to The Poetry Society (Poetry Winner)
  • A Course from  the Poetry School (Poetry Winner)
  • One year print subscription to Poetry London (Poetry Winner)
  • Consultation with Redhammer Management (Fiction Winner)
  • Six-Week Writing  Short Stories Course from Curtis Brown Creative (Fiction Winner)Poetry entries should be no more than 40 lines.
    Fiction entries should be no more than 2,000 words long.

There’s no theme – just submit your finest story or poem offering your own unique window on a slice of the world!

Entry fees are £18 for short fiction and £12 for poetry.

For full details, visit aestheticamagazine.com/creative-writing-award/how-to-enter/

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

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Enter The Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize

Terra Nostra Tropical plants cr Judy DarleyWasafari magazine invites submissions of Poetry, Fiction and Life Writing for The Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize.

The prize closes on 30th June 2023 at 5pm BST.

The prize supports writers who have not yet published a book-length work, with no limits on age, gender, nationality, or background. Winners of each category receive a £1,000 cash prize and will be published in Wasafiri’s print magazine. Shortlisted writers will have their work published on the Wasafiri website. All 15 shortlistees and winners will be offered the Chapter and Verse or Free Reads mentoring scheme in partnership with The Literary Consultancy (dependent on eligibility), and a conversation with Nikesh Shukla of The Good Literary Agency to discuss their career progression

The fee is £10 for a single entry and £16 for a double entry. No entry may be more than 3,000 words long.  

Subsidised entry is available for those who would otherwise be unable to enter the prize.  

Shortlisted entrants will be notified in early September

Find full details of how to enter at www.wasafiri.org.

About the judges

Leila Aboulela (fiction judge) is the first ever winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing. Nominated three times for the Orange Prize (now the Women’s Prize for Fiction), her novels include Bird Summons, The Kindness of Enemies, The Translator, a New York Times 100 Notable Books of the Year,Minaret and Lyrics Alley, which was Fiction Winner of the Scottish Book Awards. Her short story collection Elsewhere, Home won the Saltire Fiction Book of the Year. Leila’s work has been translated into fifteen languages. Her sixth novel, River Spirit, set in Sudan in the lead up to the British invasion of 1898, is due for publication in March 2023. Leila grew up in Khartoum, Sudan and now lives in Aberdeen, Scotland. 

Diana Evans (Chair) is the author of the novels A House for Alice, Ordinary People, The Wonder and 26a, which was the inaugural winner of the Orange Award for New Writers. Ordinary People won the 2019 South Bank Sky Arts Award for Literature and was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction. She also publishes stories, essays and criticism, is associate lecturer in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. 

Raised on the North Peckham estate in South London, Caleb Femi (poetry judge) is a poet and director. His debut collection, Poor, was published in 2020 by Penguin Press. He has written and directed short films for the BBC, Channel 4, Bottega Veneta and Louis Vuitton. A former Young People’s Laureate, Caleb won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection (2021) and has been shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize (2021), and longlisted for the Jhalak Prize (2021). He has been featured in the Dazed 100 list of the next generation shaping youth culture. 

Aanchal Malhotra (life writing judge) is a writer and oral historian from New Delhi. She is the co-founder of the Museum of Material Memory, and the author of two critically acclaimed books, Remnants of Partition and In the Language of Remembering, that explore the human history and generational impact of the 1947 Partition. Her work has won the Council for Museum Anthropology Book Award, and been shortlisted for the British Academy Book Prize, the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar, Hindu Lit for Life Non Fiction Prize, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize and the Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize. Her newest work is a debut novel titled The Book of Everlasting Things. 

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.

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Enter the Bridport Prize 2023

Pebble man by Judy DarleyThe Bridport Prize, one of the UK’s most prestigious writing competitions, is currently seeking your short stories, flash fiction, poems, memoirs and debut novels.

The deadline for all competition entries is 31st May 2023.

All entries are judged anonymously. To avoid disqualification, make sure you do not include your name, address, phone number, email, website, twitter handle etc on the document or in the file name.

Poems may be up to 42 lines in length (not including the title). There is no minimum line count. The entry fee is £12. The winning poet will receive £5,000.

Short stories may be up to 5,000 words long. The entry fee is £14. The winning short story writer will receive £5,000.

Flash fiction may be up to 250 words long. The entry fee is £11. The winning flash fiction writer will receive £1,000.

Novel extracts must be between 5,000 and 8,000 words long. You must also supply a 300-word synopsis, which should be the first page of your entry. The fee is £24.

First prize is £1,500 plus mentoring by The Literary Consultancy and consultations with literary agent AM Heath and publisher Headline.

Memoir extracts must be between 5,000 and 8,000 words. You must also supply a 300 word overview. The fee is £24.

Bridport Prize judges

Roger Robinson is the poetry judge. Rogerhas been awarded the T.S. Eliot Prize and RSL Ondaatje Prize for A Portable Paradise, which was also a New Statesman Book of the Year. He has been commissioned by The National Trust, the V&A, and the National Portrait Gallery, amongst others, and is a co-founder of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen and Spoke Lab.

Colin Barrett is the short story judgeColin’s debut collection of stories, Young Skins, was awarded the Rooney Prize, the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Prize and the Guardian First Book Award. His stories have appeared in the Stinging Fly, the New Statesman, the New Yorker and Harper’s. His second short story collection, Homesickness, was published in 2022.

Christopher Allen is the flash fiction judge. Christopher is the editor-in-chief and publisher of SmokeLong Quarterly. A teacher, editor, and translator, he is the author of the flash fiction collection Other Household Toxins (Matter Press).

Sarah Hall is judging novel entries. Sarah is the author of six novels and three short story collections. She has won multiple literary prizes in the UK and overseas, including the BBC National Short Story Award twice, the Portico, Edge Hill and Commonwealth Prizes, and the EM Forster Award. She’s been shortlisted for the Booker prize and the Prix Femina Etranger.

Cathy Rentzenbrink is judging memoir entries. Cathy  is the author of The Last Act of Love, A Manual for Heartache, Dear Reader and Everyone is Still Alive. Her latest book Write It All Down: How to put your life on the page was published in January 2022.

Don’t forget to check out the Writers’ Room on the Bridport Prize website for resources and inspiration.

Find full details and enter your creative works at www.bridportprize.org.uk. And don’t forget to sign up for their newsletter full of useful tips and inspiration.

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.

The Commonwealth Foundation seeks tales of healthy communities

Crowd on Welsh Back Bristol. Photo by Judy Darley

adda, the online magazine of the Commonwealth Foundation. is inviting writers to submit creative works of non-fiction, short fiction, short graphic fiction and poetry on the theme of healthy communities.

They ask: “What does health mean to us as individuals and as societies? How does the climate crisis impact our health? What is the relationship between health access for all and justice? How do we imagine a world with health and care at its centre? What if we never got ill? Or if we were all doctors?”

This is a fantastic writing prompt. What issues can you highlight or invent through your words?

They are interested in works that speak creatively to questions around the idea of healthy communities, which might include creative reflections on physical and mental well-being, disability justice, sexual and reproductive rights, LGBTQIA+ healthcare, the art and practice of indigenous medicine, among others.

The deadline for submissions is 4th October 2022 at 23:59 in your time zone. 

To have your work considered, you must be a Commonwealth citizen aged 18 or over.  

Submission guidelines 

Entries should follow the following guidelines:

. Creative non-fiction: 2000-5000 words 

. Short fiction: 2000-5000 words

. Short graphic fiction: finished work of 15-20 pages or potential panels of illustrations (and a rationale) which can be fully developed within a month 

. Poetry: up to 2 poems (50 lines in total).  

Entries must be original and submitted in English, although other languages can form part of the work for context.

Only one submission per writer will be considered. If you plan to submit a fiction piece to the 2023 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, you can send the same work, provided you inform them in the form.  

Previously published work, whether in print or online, in whole or in part, will not be considered. 

Up to 30 pieces will be selected by a team of readers and editors and will be published on  adda  between February and May 2023. Writers whose work is accepted for publications will be paid a  fee.

Find full details of how to submit your work here. 

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

Submit your manuscript to Soft Skull Press

Sad Ghost Cereal cr Judy Darley

Soft Skull Press invites un-agented authors to submit complete manuscripts until 21st July 2021.

They describe themselves as “a home for projects that dissolve categories and hierarchies, provide an alternative to dominant narratives, and make room for new and unexpected ideas and feelings. We aim to create lasting and transformative relationships with writers, and to continually reimagine how a book can be written, published, and sold.”

They publish adult literary fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and hybrid projects. At this time they are especially seeking and encouraging submissions from BIPOC writers and underrepresented voices of any race, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, class, and physical or mental ability.

Authors of accepted submissions retain full copyright license to their work.

For your chance to be published by Soft Skull Press, upload your full manuscript and a statement of intent to their Submittable queue.

There is no submission fee.

In the ‘cover letter’ field, include:

  • A one-paragraph summary of your project
  • The total word count
  • A brief author bio
  • Your contact information

Please submit only one manuscript.

They welcome simultaneous submissions, but ask that if your work is accepted elsewhere, you withdraw your submission promptly.

They also advise: “Please send your work only if you feel it is ready to be read; we will not be accepting updated versions of the same work once submitted.”

Find full submission details here.

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

National Flash Fiction Day flash flood

River mud and debrisNational Flash Fiction Day UK is celebrating its 10th Anniversary on Saturday 26th June 2021. I’m delighted to have a micro flash selected for the FlashFlood.

My tale The Sideways House will appear on the FlashFlood journal at around 10:20 a.m. BST. In case you weren’t aware, the FlashFlood is an annually occurring tsunami-sized outpouring of mini masterpieces. The tireless team at Nat Flash Fiction towers will publish a flash at every five to ten minutes for 24 hours straight, from 00:01 until 23:59 BST.

I can’t wait to see what other wonders are in the stream. As an added treat, I’ll share a film of myself reading The Sideways House at around the same time as it sails out on the flood.

In other news, my wry eco-poem ‘What’s That’, featuring water voles and Rats, has been published by Spilling Cocoa Over Martin Amis, which describes itself as “a website dedicated to the serious art of writing humorous poetry.”

A coppice of poetry

Three Seren poetry titlesI recently experienced the joy of arriving home to a package full of poetry collections from the inestimable Seren Books. It got me wondering what a collective noun for poetry collections should be. A library seems too literal, so I began thinking about what poetry offers – how it provides the space to pause and reflect before carrying on with the busy act of living. So, a poetry collection is a coppice, in the forest of everyday life.

Each of the collections on my doorstop hummed with its own resonance.

Footnotes to Water cover

Footnotes to Water by Zoë Skoulding immediately rose to the surface, in part thanks to the quirky duck feet displayed on the cover as though glimpsed through ice. This quiet collection shines with Skoulding’s finesse – she plays with shape, form, punctuation and alliteration to paint an impression of rivers’ movements against your skull. Throughout, we’re invited to view water in its relation to human feats of engineering, and to compare our own dances and dalliances to that of a river, as in Observation Chamber, “where no light falls surface/ except * in pin-pricks on red water*” Gorgeous.

Skoulding writes of our attempts to confine and control rivers, and of the floods that follow rainfall: “wicking up cracks in plaster/ where the houses drink it in.”

Her rivers mirror our bodies; each striving to speak and make themselves heard, and each craving to explore beyond their outer edges. There’s something ancient in the descriptions surfacing here, even as Skoulding’s sculpted lines tether modernity: “There are/ three days of gathering clouds/ and the cheapest is free.”

The collection is divided into three parts too, with Adda, focused on Bangor’s covered river, followed by Heft, a word meaning, Skoulding explains in Notes & Acknowledgements, “localised knowledge passed on through generations of sheep” or “habitat”. At once, we’re redirected from webbed feet to hooves, celebrating the “twitching flanks”, “wild primrose eyes” and “the silences between.”

Part three is Teint, dreamt up during a Paris residency where the theme of habitat and hidden rivers is continued with the idea of movement, of sound and repetition carrying us back and forth and forth again, so that progress towards our conclusion is barely discernible yet inevitable. Each of these begins with what Skoulding is not describing: “Not flooded marsh but ice/ with skaters engraving/ continuous serifs/ on the halted waters.”

Skoulding examines how we sit against the world around us, as well as how we strive to make it fit around us.

A Second Whisper cover

A Second Whisper by Lynne Hjelmgaard takes us on a different sort of journey: “It opens with the sweet lapping/ of water on a rock/ and closes gently where the tide/ has nowhere to run.”

A deep tenderness ripples through evocations of quiet intimacy. Examinations of time, memory and seasons thread stanzas with subtle fragrances – the smell of yellow autumn leans and the scent of old paper anchor hints of a richly sensuous life. There is humour in the fondness captured here: a baby magpie described as a “little trollop”, daffodils are “still hibernating”, and rats leave teethmarks “on apples and soap.”

Simultaneously, seemingly light lines shiver with feeling: “whenever it rains/ now or anywhere the rain/ stops everything/ to think of you.”

In Once, Hjelmgaard remembers a long friendship: “Now we write careful letters/ as if they are to lost versions/ of ourselves.” To me this describes the entire collection of thoughtful, inward-reaching poems, and we are privileged to be privy to them.

The Black Place, titled after Georgia O’Keefe’s name for a beloved yet desolate strip of land, is Tamar Yoseloff’s unflinching look at the subjects we shy from. Beginning with The C Word, “Not to be confused with the other c word/ that cuts at both ends”, the poet lets us know at once that the contents may challenge and delight in equal measure.

Touching on fairytales and mythology, Yoseloff treads a line where glib and godly rest side by side: “There is a God,/ at least a guy who’d buy a round/ for the lads outside The Pineapple.”

Elsewhere, in Darklight, Yoseloff harnesses words like the shooting stars she describes as making “a sound like a scratch in vinyl”. “Our lives are brief”, she reminds us, “like the bank of candles in cathedrals, each a flame for someone loved.”

It’s a comfort to cling to those stanzas as Yoseloff draws us onwards towards Cuts, and has us consider the bleakest of prophesies: “I’m an open book/ I want to close.”

There’s beauty in this collection, trussed to hope and a hunger for life. Perfect for days when dusk insists on arriving early.

All three titles are available to buy from Seren.

Seen or read anything interesting recently? I’d love to know. I’m always happy to receive reviews of books, art, theatre and film. To submit or suggest a review, please send an email to judydarley(at)iCloud.com. Likewise, if you’ve published or produced something you’d like me to review, get in touch.

Poetry review – Afternoons Go Nowhere by Sheenagh Pugh

Afternoons Go NowhereTime, in Sheenagh Pugh’s hands, has a tendency to turn gleefully slippery. In Afternoons Go Nowhere, her tenth collection, Pugh turns her poetic sorcery to humanity, history, geology, nature, and the spaces between all those magical things.

Silken strings of words offer up glorious catches: bewildered kings, harangued statues, a lord’s horse, a  bored husband building cairns, and monks speculating about saints exhale alongside bus passengers “postponing goodbyes”, not to mention glacial water scooping “a hollow in limestone.” In Pugh’s eyes, it seems, each of these has equal gravitas.

Lit by Pugh’s keen gaze, every plant, stone, animal or person has the potential to grow playful or impatient, coy, attention-seeking, or ashamed. Unexpected characters emerge humming tunes that seem familiar, but which curl with their own original lilt.

Continue reading

Join an apocalyptic poetry podcast 

Blurry trees_Glasgow to Oban_by Judy DarleyBedtime Stories For The End Of The World is a podcast series examining the power of myth in a time of political crisis.

As they near the launch of their second series in autumn 2019, they’re seeking 12 emerging poets to join the project.

The chosen rising stars will feature alongside leading poets Malika Booker, Andrew McMillan, Sabrina Mahfouz, Kei Miller, Helen Mort and Jack Underwood.

If selected, you will receive a £300 fee for the commission and for your time on the project.

You’ll be expected to write a five- to seven-minute poem or poem sequence based on a traditional story of your choosing.

As part of this opportunity, you’ll get to take part in a one-day workshop and one-day of recording with the lead artists.

There will also be the opportunity to write for the website, and to participate in readings to promote the project.

The workshops will take place on 1st and 2nd June 2019, and the recording on 27th and 28th July 2019. You will need to be free for at least one workshop date and one recording date.

The Bedtime Stories For The End Of The World team are based in London, but travel costs for writers outside of London are available. “We especially encourage applications from under-represented groups, including women, BAME people and LGBTQ+ writers.”

Applications close at 5pm on Wednesday 1st May 2019.

Find full details of how to apply here.