Fenland Poet Laureate Competition Now Open!

Could you write a poem for Fenland?

Do you live, work or study in the Fens? Are you inspired by the bleak and beautiful landscapes and unique social history of this fantastic area? Could you be the next Poet Laureate for Fenland?

ADeC and Atelier East, working in partnership with Fen Speak and the Wisbech & Fenland Museum, are proud to announce the Fenland Poet Laureate poetry competition for 2014!

This is a chance for all writers from across the Fens to come together and share their poetry and help put Fenland on the creative map!

"The award has opened so many doors for me, and allowed me to provide opportunities for many more Fenland Poets. It's been a fantastic experience!" -- Leanne Moden, Fenland Poet Laureate 2013.

And best of all, it's free to enter the competition!

The Fenland Poet Laureate Judges are looking for poems that represent and relate to theme 'Fenland'. You can interpret the theme in any way you choose, and the team are really looking forward to reading your entries!

Winning the title of Fenland Poet Laureate is a great recognition of talent, as well as a fantastic opportunity to engage with your local community. The Laureate will be able to write about local events throughout the year and present poems for special occasions, working with others to develop ideas for bringing poetry to Fenland.

Awards:

• First, second and third places will be awarded to three of the poets in the adult (17+) category. 

• Commendations will be awarded to young poets (10-16) for entries, which the judges feel have particular merit. 

• Certificates of achievement will be given to all short-listed and commended entrants. 

• All short-listed and commended poets will be invited to the special Fenland Poet Laureate Awards evening on Wednesday 19th March at the Wisbech and Fenland Museum.

Deadlines for entry: 5pm on Friday 31st January 2014.

Conditions of Entry:

• Your poem should be no longer than 40 lines, and should be typed on a singleside of A4 paper. 
• Please write your age in the top right-hand corner of the page, but please do not write your name on your poem, as all poems will be judged anonymously. 
• All entrants must live, work, or study in the Fens. 
• We can only accept one poem per entrant, and this poem must be previously unpublished.

So, if you live, work, or study in the Fens, the Fenland Poet Laureate team would love to hear from you! Please send your poem, along with a cover sheet with your name, email address, telephone number, address, age group entered (16 & under, or 17+) and the title of the poem to:
Fenland Poet Laureate Competition
Babylon Gallery
Waterside
Ely, CB7 4AU

Alternatively, you can pick up an entry form from your local library. For further details, email info@adec.org.uk.

Call For Submissions - Free Poetry Competitions & Magazine Content Required!

Global Feel Good Cultural Competition 2013

This competition is open to all and any type of poetry. The judging criteria is how 'feel good' the poem is as the whole point of the competition is to raise the nation's spirits and to gather together a resource of feel good culture. Prizes: TBA - a minimum of £50 - the criteria for judging will be how 'fun' and 'feel good' the poem is. 
Judges: Laura & Mark Tong - a third judge TBA.
Entry Fee: £0
See website for contact details and to enter: http://www.globalfeelgoodcompany.com/index.php

Closing Date: 30th September 2013

Basil Bunting Young People's Award 2013

Categories: 10-14 years and 14-18 years.
First Prize £50. Second Prize £30. Third Prize £20. There will be 3 commended works. 

Judge: Andrew Motion Prizes:
Entry £0
Further information and entry: http://basilbuntingaward.co.uk/w13/?page_id=36
Closing Date: 30th September 2013

Sassafras Literary Magazine      

Type of submissions: Poetry, flash fiction, nonfiction, artwork, audio, lists, prose poetry, flashling. All things minimalistic and mind-slicing wanted. http://sassafrasmag.wordpress.com/2013/06/05/call-for-submissions/
Submission guidelines: Poetry: 1-2 poems of 1-20 lines   Prose poetry: 1-3 pages per submission. Fiction:  Flash fiction up to 1000 words, flashling 10 to 500 words. Nonfiction: Narrative, interview, fact box (make it count!), memoir moments (one scene) creative lists and first pages of novels to come.  Other: Science illustration, amazing  Q&As, music playlists with caption, time documents. Art: Digital collage, photo, drawings, letterheads, selfies (if unique), doodles and charts, if artful.
Submit to: sassafrasmag@outlook.com
Publication frequency: Weekly, published Mondays. During the initial month, September, one issue every two weeks. Editor: Miranda Holmqvist.
Closing Date: 30th September 2013

Call for Submissions: Creative Competition Celebrates East Anglian Museums

Are you passionate about your local museum? Do you have a hidden creative talent that's just bursting to be recognised? Then why not enter this fantastic competition?

As part of their work with local museums, the Atelier East Young Curators' Forum are putting together a booklet of creative art and writing to celebrate museums across the East of England, and we'd like to hear from you.

We need your short stories, poems and drawings inspired by your local museum. This is a great opportunity to see your work in print, and there are so many amazing objects to spark your imagination! You could write a poem about the mummified rat in the Whittlesey museum, tell the story about the 'Spong Man' at the Norwich Castle Museum, or paint a picture of old-fashioned computers on display at the Framlingham Museum in Suffolk.  

All the winning entries will be published in a special limited edition booklet, and the competition is open to artists and writers of all ages! So, whether you're a budding Piccaso, or an amateur JK Rowling, we'd love to hear from you!

This project has been made possible with the support of Cambridgeshire-based arts organisation Atelier East and funding from the charity, Young Lives.

If you'd like to enter, please send your submission to info@karen-harvey.co.uk with your name, contact telephone number, and the name of the museum and artefact that inspired you. Alternatively, you can pick up an entry form from the Wisbech and Fenland Museum, Museum Square, Wisbech PE13 1ES.

The closing date for submissions is Saturday 31st August 2013.

Current Recommended Poetry Competitions (Free and Fee-Based)

Rialto Magazine - Nature Poetry Competition 

Closing Date: 30th September 2013

Competion is run in partnership with the RSPB, and will be judged by poet and broadcaster Ruth Padel.The poetry magazine and Europe's largest conservation charity are encouraging poets to submit work in response to the competition theme, 'Nature Poetry'. Prizes: Publication in The Rialto, 1st Prize £1000, 2nd Prize £400, 3rd Prize a place on a creative writing course at Ty Newydd in 2014 (worth £540).
Entry Fee: £6 for the first poem and £3 for each subsequent poem Contact: For rules and to enter visit: www.therialto.co.uk
For further information: Matt Howard, RSPB and a member of The Rialto's Advisory Board, 01603 697515 or matthew.howard@rspb.org.uk

National Poetry Competition 2013 

Closing Date: 31st October 2013

Details:
Prizes:First Prize: £5000, Second Prize: £2000, Third Prize: £1000, Seven Commendations: £100. The top-three winning poems will be published in Poetry Review. The winner is also invited to read at the Ledbury Poetry Festival in July 2014. Up to 150 entrants will also be offered a discount on selected activities from the Poetry School. Winning and commended poems will be published on the Poetry Society website when the competition prizes are announced in spring 2014. Judges: The judges of the 2013 National Poetry Competition are Julia Copus, Matthew Sweeney and Jane Yeh. The National Poetry Competition is an award for individual poems that are previously unpublished.
Entry Fee: £6 for first entry, £3.50 for subsequent entries Contact: Postal Entries: National Poetry Competition, The Poetry Society,22 Betterton Street, London, WC2H 9BX, UK
Enter online: http://www.poetrysociety.org.uk/content/competitions/npc/

The Colour of Saying - Dylan Thomas Creative Writing Competition 

Closing Date: 27th April 2014

Details:
For ages 10 to adult. Responses invited to the poem 'The Hunchback in the Park'. They can be in poetry, prose-poems, prose, diary form, and letter form. The best of the submissions will be judged by international writers/translators and published in an anthology which will appear on the 27th October 2014, the centenary of Dylan Thomas's birth. The remainder of the submissions will appear in phases on website. Part of the remit of the competition is to encourage trauma or war victims, prisoners, abused wives or husbands, immigrants or refugees to a new country who do not speak the country's language and so entries are welcome in the writer's mother tongue (whatever the language is) or in the writer's dialect, together with (if possible) an English translation. Submissions are limited to one page each for the original and translation. Please see website for full details.

Entry Fee: £0.00 Contact: Submissions must be sent to colour@dylandownthups.org.uk
as a word attachment, which should include the age of the entrant and contact details.
www.dylandowntheups.org.uk

 

Call for Submissions: William Soutar Writing Prize 2013

This is an annual competition held in honour of Perth’s greatest poet. Now in its twelfth year, it attracts writers from across the globe, as far afield as India and South Africa. It alternates between poetry and short stories; for 2013, poems may be entered. Previous winners of this prestigious competition have gone on to enjoy further success including having their work published. 

Entry is free and open to anyone in the world over the age of 16, but individuals are limited to two poems.

This year’s judge is Brian Johnstone, who is a Scottish poet.

First Prize:  An Arvon Writing course at Moniack Mhor (for which the normal fee would be approximately £600), or another of the UK Arvon Centres. The winner will be announced on Writers’ Day, Saturday 31st August 2013, at the AK Bell Library Perth.

Second Prize:  £100 Book Tokens.

Local Prize: A local prize of £50 will also be awarded for the best work from a resident of Perth and Kinross.

• The deadline for all entries is Tuesday 2nd July 2013.
• All entrants must be 16 years of age or over.
• Poems must not exceed 40 lines.
• A maximum of two poems may be submitted.

For more details see http://www.williamsoutar.com/prize.html  

Free Submissions Invited by Poems Underwater

Mermaids – half fish and half human – have a long cultural history, from the Wild Man of Orford to Hans Christian Andersen and Walt Disney – even Starbucks Coffee.The project has been looking specifically at the mermaid as a figure anchored in two or more communities with its needs met by neither.

 
But Poems Underwater is a collaborative project seeking to explore the figure of the mermaid from as many different creative viewpoints as possible.

We are looking for submissions of new artworks and writing to join the discussion and to be featured in a Poems Underwater zine and exhibition / poetry reading this September. 

Themes could include (but are not limited to):

• queerness
• migration
• crossing borders
• living in two or more places
• feminism
• waterways
• sea creatures
• hybrids
• new versions of mermaid legends
• not feeling at home
• the environment and eco-consciousness
• disability

Contribute writing

Please send no more than 6 previously unpublished pieces as attachments to poemsunderwater@gmail.com by June 1st 2013.

They welcome short stories, flash fiction, poetry and non-fiction. But please do keep short stories under 2000 words, with poems no longer than 40 lines each.

Contribute artworks

As above – please send these as attachments or (if they’re large files) via WeTransfer or similar to poemsunderwater@gmail.com by June 1st 2013.

We welcome artworks across all media, but please do not submit more than 6 pieces.
There is no entry fee for this project. Selected works will be displayed on this website as they come through, but we will let you know if your work has been chosen for inclusion in the Poems Underwater zine by June 20th.

The Poems Underwater launch event and exhibition will be held in London in September 2013.

If you’d like to clarify anything or ask any questions at all, please get in touch at poemsunderwater@gmail.com

 Website: http://poemsunderwater.wordpress.com/contribute/

Alexandra Park Library Creative Writing Competition - Free Entry

The theme of the competition is ‘London Journey’.

Poems must not exceed 40 lines.

Flash Fiction must not exceed 500 words.  

Closing date for all submission is 31^st May 2013.  

No entries will be accepted beyond that date.

Poems must be typed in single spacing and stories in double spacing. 

Paper submissions to:  Allen Ashley, c/o Alexandra Park Library, Alexandra Park Road, London N22 7UJ

Electronic submissions as a Word or RTF attachment to librarycomp@hotmail.co.uk

Please put your name, contact details and title of your work on your manuscript. You may enter one poem and/or one story. 

There is no entry fee. 

All entries will be read by the judge, Allen Ashley.

A gift prize will be awarded to one winner in each category: Poetry and Flash Fiction.  Winners and runners-up will be invited to give a public reading at the library and poems and stories will be on display after the competition has been judged.  

Entries may also be placed on a website or in an email newsletter.

Email librarycomp@hotmail.co.uk  for further details.