My Novel

My Novel

UK Poetry Competitions (currently 37

Writers’ Forum Poetry Competition.  This monthly contest from the glossy magazine Writers’ Forum is for poems of up to 40 lines.
    Closing: Monthly.  Entries arriving too late for one month go forward to the next.
    Prizes: 1st - £100.  Runners-up - A Chambers Dictionary.
    Entry Fee: £5 each for the first three, £3 each thereafter.  Enclose sae for free critique.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Forward Press Animal Antics Competition.  This is for poems of up to 30 lines about your pet.  In addition to the poem, you are expected to send a photo (of the animal, not you, you vain fool).
    Closing: Unknown.
    Prize: £1,000.
    Entry Fee: None.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Envoi International Poetry Competition.  This one, from the well-known though small magazine Envoi, is for poems up to 40 lines.
    Closing: 20th February, June and October each year.
    Prize: £150, £100, £50.
    Entry Fee: £3.00 per poem or 5 for £12.00.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Whidbey Writing Competition.  This contest from Whidbey Writers Workshop in the USA is open worldwide and is for fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry and writing for children or young adults.  Up to 1,000 words.  I should point out that they have a rather strange - and if I may say so lazy - way of selecting a winner for this one.  The judge reads submissions until he or she finds one that ‘knocks his/her socks off’.  Never mind that the next one might have divested the judge of his/her pants and woolly vest, the remaining entries are tossed aside without so much as a glance.  However, you can submit you entry again if it isn’t selected (try to get it in early, as entries are read in order of submission).
    Closing: Monthly.
    Prize: $50.
    Entry Fee: None - free to enter.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

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Cinnamon Press Poetry Collection Award.  Entries for ths one should comprise 10 poems of up to 40 lines.
    Closing: 30.6.10, 30.11.10.
    Prize: £100 and your collection published.
    Entry Fee: £16 per batch of ten (includes a free copy of the winners’ anthology).
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Fish Poetry Prize 2010.  No line limit this time but a word limit: 200.  Any theme, any style.
    Closing: 30.3.10.
    Prize: 1,000 euros.  Best ten entries will be published in the annual Fish Anthology.
    Entry Fee: 12 euros.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Cooldog Publications Short Story & Poetry Competitions.  This regular runner is for stories of up to 3,000 words and poems of up to 40 lines.  The poetry theme this time is The Love Poem (they want to see what the 21st century can bring to the form).  For the stories, romance doesn’t get a look-in. The theme is Terrors of the Night.
    Closing: 31.3.10.
    Prizes (in each category): £100, £50, £25.  The winners and three runners-up will be published in the Cooldog E-Mag.  Winners will be entered for the annual Cooldog Prize which has a top award of £500.
    Entry Fee: £3.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Dear Michael
   I discovered your excellent site a few months back and entered some of the poetry competitions. I have in all my long years never received a payment for anything I have written, but I today received an email from Cooldog Publications to say I have won second prize in their E-mag Poetry Competition! £50! What a great way to start the new year.
   I just had to write and say thanks to you for the trouble you have taken with your site and how much I appreciate the sense of humour that underpins it.
  This has given me a terrific boost.
                                                                                -  Carol Browne

Hannah Frank Poetry Competition.  This contest in memory of Glasgow artist Hannah Frank, whose career spanned an amazing 75 years, is for poems of up to 40 lines inspired by one of her black & white drawings (visit the website’s Gallery to see them).  Entries can be in English or Scots.  Putting words such as ‘Och Aye’ and ‘Hoots mon’ into your poem does not make it Scots, incidentally.  Scots is a separate language known only to a handful of lonely academics in Scottish universities.  More people speak Klingon.  Avoid.
    Closing: 31.3.10.
    Prizes: Adult - £200, £100.  Winners receive a framed print of an Hannah Frank drawing of their choice.  There are different cash prizes for younger winners (18 and under), in four different age categories.
    Entry Fee: Adults - £3.  18 and Under - free.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

LXV Books Spring Poetry Competition.  LXV Books is a shop in Bethnal Green, East London.  The contest is for poems of up to 30 lines.  Poet Ann Drysdale, of whom I have not previously heard, will be doing the judging.
    Closing: 31.3.10.
    Prize: £100.  The top twenty entries will be distributed in a commemorative volume.
    Entry Fee: £5 for three poems.
    Comp Page: Click Here .

Sentinel Literary Quarterly Poetry Competition.  This frequent visitor to my pages is for poems on any subject, running to a maximum of 40 lines.  The judge will be Claire Askew who has impressive qualifications, including a Masters Degree in English Literature and an MSc in Creative Writing.  In 2008 she won, amongst other literary awards, the Sloan Prize for Writing in Lowland Scots Vernacular, easily beating the other two entrants (only kidding, Claire: I know there were probably a dozen).
    Closing: 31.3.10 (online), 25.3.10 (postal).
    Prizes: £100, £60, £40.  The winners and selected entries will be published.
    Entry Fee: £3 each, £12 for five.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Wergle Flomp Poetry Contest.  This fun American competition, which is open worldwide, is for parody poems.  First of all you find a vanity poetry contest with low standards (they’re usually free to enter) where just about every entry is praised and selected for publication so that the organisers can flog an expensive anthology to the multitude of lucky poets.  You write and enter something absurd, strange or amusingly dire (yes, I know this sounds a bit like the National Poetry Competition, but it’s not quite the same thing).  Finally you send this poem as your entry for the Wergle Flomp contest.
    Closing: 1.4.10.
    Prizes: 1st - $1,500.  2nd - $800.   3rd - $400.  Honourable Mention (12) - $75.  Winners will also receive a Winning Writers polo shirt.  There is no anthology to buy.
    Entry Fee: None.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Ver Poets Open Poetry Competition.  Here is another familiar face in the competitions crowd.  It is for poems of up to 30 lines in any style.
    Closing: 30.4.10.
    Prizes: £500, £300, £100.  Winners and other selected poems will be published in the anthology.
    Entry Fee: £3 each, four for £10, £2 thereafter.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

MAG Poetry Prize.  All profits from this contest from Poetic Republic go to the Mines Advisory Group, a humanitarian organisation that clears the explosive leftovers from conflicts in various parts of the world.  Your entry needn’t be about mines, although it could contain a little dynamite.   The line limit is 42.  Poems will be judged online by the entrants.  This includes you, and take note that if you don’t pull your weight you will be knocked out.  Blimey, they must send round a couple of heavies.  Oh, I see, knocked out of the contest.
    Closing: 30.4.10.
    Prizes: Winners receive a share of the prize fund, which accumulates at the rate of £2 per entry.  1st - 50%.  2nd - 25%.  3rd - 15%.  4th - 10%.
    Entry Fee: £6.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Pulsar Poetry Competition.  This annual contest from the poetry magazine Pulsar has a line limit of 40 and is open to anyone over 16.
    Closing: 30.4.10.
    Prizes: £125, £75, £50.
    Entry Fee : £2.50 for the first, £1.50 thereafter.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Earlyworks Press Web Poetry Competition.  Earlyworks Press was formed to publish poems written before seven in the morning, but it turned out that poets were too lazy to get up before nine, so the time restriction had to be dropped.  Well, that’s my theory anyway.  The contest is for poems of up to 40 lines written at any time of the day or night.  Winners will be published on thr website.
    Closing: 30.4.10.
    Prizes: 1st - £75.  Runners-up (5) - £5.
    Entry Fee: £3 each, £12 for 6.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Ware Poets Open Poetry Competition 2010.  This annual contest is for poems of up to 50 lines.  It also has a sonnet category - which lifts it above the run of the mill.
    Closing: 30.4.10.
    Prize: £500.   Best Sonnet: £200.
    Entry Fee: £3 each, £10 for four.
    Details (send SAE): The Competition Secretary, Clothall End House, California, Baldock, Herts, SG7 6NU.

Southport Writers Circle International Poetry Competition 2010.  I used to live just up the road from Southport.  It was a cultural void back then, often referred to as the poor man’s Blackpool.  But not any more.  These days, in addition to its renowned flower show (‘a horticultural hotbed’) it has a writers’ circle and an international poetry contest.  Some are now calling Blackpool the poor man’s Southport, although admittedly not many.  The contest requires poems of up to 40 lines.  Alison Chisholm will be judging.
    Closing: 30.4.10.
    Prizes: £200, £100, £50.  Humour Prize - £25.  Local Prize - £25.
    Entry Fee: £3.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Grey Hen Poetry Competition.  This one from Grey Hen Press is for poems of up to 40 lines written by women over 60.
    Closing: 30.4.10.
    Prizes: £100, £50, £25.
    Entry Fee: £3 each, £10 for four.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Build Africa (Excel For Charity) Poetry Competition.  This contest, which is in aid of a UK charity working in rural areas of Uganda and Kenya, is for poems of up to 40 lines.  Winners will be published on the website and there may be an anthology of the best entries.
    Closing: 30.4.10 (online), 25.4.10 (postal).
    Prizes: £150, £75, £35.
    Entry Fee: £3 each, £12 for five.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Hi Michael
     I discovered your website last year and entered lots of comps - no prizes in 2008. This year I decided just to enter The Trowell and District Writers Trust competitions - again directed from your site and also in the hope of bettering my marks compared to my entries last year.
     I am delighted to say I went along to the Presentation yesterday and received 1st prize in the Open Poetry competition - a lovely certificate, a shield and some prize money.
     I thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon which had a "Stand and Deliver" poetry competition as well as a raffle, refreshments, sales of Members poetry, and time to chat and get to know people.
     The comps are great - all entries receive a mark and a short critique - I found all these helpful and encouraging. I feel I have new friends and a lovely day to look back on.
                                                                                -  Kate Brumby

Partners Annual Open Poetry Competition.  I know very little about this competition from the Partners Writing Group except that they run it every year and tell me very little about it.
    Closing: 1.5.10.
    Prizes: 1st - £250.  2nd - £50.  3rd - A year’s subscription to Aspire poetry magazine.
    Entry Fee: £2.50.
    Details (send email): partners_writing_group@hotmail.com

Far Horizons Award for Poetry.  This contest from the Canadian literary magazine The Malahat Review (‘dedicated to excellence in writing’) is for poems of up to 60 lines.  Any subject or aesthetic approach.
    Closing: 1.5.10.
    Prize: $500 plus a publication fee at the rate of $40 per printed page.
    Entry Fee: $35.  Emerging poets can enter three poems for this price.  Humbling generosity, but I think most poets would have preferred the option to enter one poem at a third of the cost.  All entrants receive a one-year subscription to The Malahat Review, if that’s any consolation.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Northampton Literature Group  Opem Poetry Competition .  This one has two categories: Rhyming Poems and Free Verse.  In both cases, the line limit is 40.
    Closing: 15.5.10.
    Prizes (in each category): 1st - £150.  2nd - £50.  3rd - £25.  Highly Commended (3) - £10.
    Entry Fee: £3.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Virginia Warbey Poetry Prize.  This is the fifth of these contests from Chandler’s Ford Writers, and once again the line limit is 40.  An anthology will be published of winners and selected shortlisted entries.
    Closing: 19.5.10.
    Prizes: £800, £350, £200.
    Entry Fee: £3 each or five for £12.
    Details: CFW Poetry, PO Box 474, Eastleigh, Hants, SO50 0AN.

Welsh Poetry Competition .  If you can write Welsh poetry in English you could be in with a chance here ... but only if you manage to keep your entry down to fewer than 50 lines.
    Closing: 20.5.10.
    Prize: £300.
    Entry Fee: £3.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

War Poetry Contest.  If you enjoy a good war and love to write about it ... then you are probably not the sort of person this American contest is aimed at.  They don’t actually say it’s for anti-war poems, but poets are generally expected to be against carnage, so we must read that into the script.  To enter you submit between 1 and 3 poems with a combined line count of no more than 500.
    Closing: 31.5.10.
    Prizes: $2,000, $1,200, $600.  There are in addition twelve Honourable Mentions with prizes of  $100.  All winners will be published on the website.
    Entry Fee: $15 for up to 3 poems.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Lymington Arts Festival Open Poetry Competition.  The first arts festival having been a roaring success, Lymington is running another one, and again there is a poetry contest.  Poems of up to 40 lines on the theme of ‘Solstice’ are required.
    Closing: 31.5.10.
    Prize: £250.
    Entry Fee: £2.
    Website: Click Here (then click on the Poetry link on the left side of the homepage).

Leaf Books Poetry Competition.  Another regular, this time for poems of up to 35 lines.  Winning and commended entries will be published in an anthology, while ‘very outstanding’ (or, to use the modern expression, well good) poems will appear in the Leaf Writing magazine.
    Closing: 31.5.10.
    Prizes: 1st - £200 plus a free copy of the anthology.  Runners-up - A copy of the anthology and ten mini-books.
    Entry Fee: £3 each, £10 for four.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Yeovil Literary Prize .  This is the seventh of these contests from Yeovil, the literary capital of the West Country where even the sheep appreciate poetry.  I once read out some of my verses on a Yeovil Sheep farm and the verdict was ‘Baaa!’ - which in sheep means ‘brilliant’  I got some of my best reviews that day.  The contest has three categories: Short Story, Poetry and Novel.  The stories can run to 2,000 words, while the poems should be no more than 40 lines.  Novels have a limit of 15,000 words for the opening chapters and synopsis.
    Closing: 31.5.10.
    Prizes: Story and Poetry - £500, £200, £100.   Novel - £1,000, £250, £100.  There is in addition a local award for residents of Somerset and Dorset, but it’s not worth moving down there specially as the prize is only £100).
    Entry Fee : Short Story & Poetry - £5 each, £8 for two, £10 for three.  Novel - £10 each.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Frogmore Poetry Prize 2010.  This annual contest is run by Frogmore Press which was founded in 1983 in the Frogmore tearooms in Folkestone.  Well, what else can you do in Folkestone?  I know: you can fall in the sea, a feat I managed at the age of 8.  Will I ever forget that day?  Unlikely, for I had the misfortune to be rescued by my two sisters.  ‘No, no - let me drown!’ I cried.  ‘I’ll never be able to face my mates again.’  But I had the ice cream money in my pocket and my pleas were ignored.  I later wrote a poem: Never Walk on Mossy Rocks, but it would have been too long for this contest because it ran to 360 lines.  The line limit here is 40.
    Closing: 31.5.10.
    Prizes : 200 guineas.  Classy.  All shortlisted poems will appear in The Frogmore Papers.
    Entry Fee: £3.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Dear Michael,
     I just wanted to tell you that I won first prize in the Charnwood Arts' miniWords Poetry Competition (£250), so thank you very much for that!
                                                                               -  Mary Whitsell 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Memorial Poetry Prize.  Coleridge did ramble on a bit in some of his poems (626 lines in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner) but you will have to curb your enthusiasm at a mere 30 lines.  The other restriction is that your entry must reflect nature or the sea.
    Closing: 1.6.10.
    Prizes: £300, £200, £100.  Highly Commended and Commended entries receive book tokens.
    Entry Fee: £3 for up to three poems.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Marple Poetry Competition.  This is Marple near the Peak District, not Miss Marple in St Mary Mead.  Happens to be my neck of the woods, but I’m not in any way biased.  Excellent contest though.  More prestigious than the Bridport.  Well, all right, I exaggerate a little, but it’s no exaggeration to say that poems can have as many as 40 lines.  There are two categories: Formal or Free Verse, and Humorous.  Note that there are separate entry forms on the website for each category.
    Closing: 2.6.10.
    Prizes: 1st - £125.  2nd - £50.  Shortlisted entrants receive book tokens.  Winners and shortlistees will be published on the website.
    Entry Fee: £3 each, £7 for three, £9 for seven.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Trowell & District Writers Trust Open Story & Poetry Competition. This is the 12th of these contests for short stories, poems, articles, stories for children, and poetry for children.  Stories can be up to 2,000 words, articles 1,500 words and poems 40 lines. Winners will be published in the special Christmas edition of the TDWT magazine Chapter and Verse.
    Closing: 30.6.10.
    Prizes: As well as small amounts of cash, there are four trophies, any one of which would look good on your coffee table when your friends drop in.  There is the exotic-sounding Vambria Walters Memorial Trophy for the most original piece; the slightly less exotic Ilkston Advertiser Trophy for a short story; the workmanlike Trowell Council Trophy for a poem; and finally the refined Nicholas Palmer MP Trophy for an article.
    Entry Fee: £4 for the first, £3 thereafter.  Juniors free.
    Details/Entry Form: The Competition Secretary, Trowell and District Writers’ Trust, 26 Derbyshire Avenue, Trowell, Notts, NG9 3QD or ring 0115 9329568 or 0115 9135548.

The Bridport Prize.  This is one of the most prestigious writing contests in the British literary calendar.  Everyone in the trade whose mind is not addled by drugs has heard of it, and they will be impressed if you can claim to have won it.  Fortunately, winning it is easy.  All you have to do is submit the best poem or short story, the former having no more than 42 lines, the latter running to no more than 5,000 words.  This year’s judges are Michael Laskey (poems) and Zoe Heller (stories).  Writers from beyond the veil should note that the Bridport rules forbid posthumous entries.
    Closing: 30.6.10.
    Prizes in each category: £5,000, £1,000, £500.  There are also ten runners-up prizes of £50.  These are called ‘supplementary prizes’ to make you feel less like an also-ran.  There is in addition a special prize of £100 and a perpetual trophy for the highest placed writer from Dorset.  The top 13 stories will be entered for the National Short Story Prize worth £15,000.  Finally, according to the website on December 1st, the top 26 poems and stories will be published in the Bridport Prize 2009 anthology.  This is already on sale.  Spooky or what?
    Entry Fee: Poems - £6.  Stories - £7.
    Website: Click Here.

UK Songwriting Contest.  There are ten categories in this annual international competition for tunesmiths and wordsmiths, including Lyrics Only.  Everyone who enters gets a chance to be heard, and possibly discovered, by industry professionals.
    Closing: 30.6.10.
    Prizes: The ten category winners will receive a personal consultation with top producer Richard Niles, plus a professionally hosted website from Broadjam on which to showcase their songs for a year.  One winner will be selected by Brit Award winning producer and songwriter Simon Ellis to be mentored and produced.  There is more, including songwriting courses, but the kettle is boiling and I must go.
    Entry Fee: £15.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Dreamquest One Poetry and Writing Contest.  The requirement for this US contest is for poems of up to 30 lines and short stories of up to five pages, any style or theme.
    Closing: 31.7.10.
    Prizes: Stories - $500, $250, $100.   Poetry - $250, $125, $50.  Winners will be published on the website.
    Entry Fee: Stories - $10.  Poetry - $5.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Dear Michael

Just to let you know I’ve been entering writing competitions for several years and this year came second in the 19^th Feile Filiochta International Poetry Competition. Hurrah! I probably wouldn’t have heard about it but for your site (and I still don’t know how to say it). I don’t even consider it one of my better poems – but it was free to enter. It just goes to show that literary competition judges have to be very subjective in the end, so it’s worth carrying on even when you don’t feel that confident. Anyway, I’m off to spend my winnings of 500 euros (that’s very nearly £375 in real money). Keep up the good work!
     Here’s a link to the poem that won the prize
     All the best - Clare Kirwan

Aesthetica Creative Works Competition.  This one from Aesthetica magazine is, they say, an opportunity for new and established artists and writers to ‘nurture their reputations on an international scale’.  Get known, in other words.  The contest has three categories of which only the first two, Fiction and Poetry, need concern us here (the third is Artwork & Photography, in case you are wondering).  Stories should be no more than 2,000 words, while poems are limited to 40 lines.
    Closing: 31.8.10.
    Prizes: £500 in each category.  Winners will be published in the Aesthetica Creative Works Annual.
    Entry Fee: £10.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Countryside Tales Autumn Poetry Competition.  Poems of up to 40 lines about the countryside in autumn are required for this one.
    Closing: 31.8.10.
    Prizes : £50, £25, £15.  The winning entries will be published in Countryside Tales.  Shortlisted entries may also be considered.
    Entry Fee: £3.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

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Notes: Unless otherwise stated in the rules, poetry should be single-spaced.  It is sometimes the case that your name shouldn’t appear on the manuscript. Check the rules.  If you put your name on there after being told not to, you’re out.  Don’t use coloured paper or fancy fonts.  The colour and pizzazz to make you stand out from the crowd should be in the words.  Plain white A4 80gsm paper is the stuff to use, with plain black typing or print.  My preferred font for poetry manuscripts printed on an inkjet or laser printer is Gill Sans in 12 point (13 if I’m not pressed for space).  This gives a clear, dark print that’s easy to read.  Although publishers and agents sometimes demand the feeble Courier font, which comes out on my printers like something produced by a typewriter with an antique ribbon, I’ve never never known competition organisers to express any preference.  But as always, check the rules.  Finally, write on one side of the sheet only - unless asked to put your address, etc, on the back.
 

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Disclaimer

For other types of writing competitions, see the full list of literary contests on my Writing Comps page.