My Novel

My Novel

UK Poetry Competitions (currently 38)

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.
    Prize: £100.
    Entry Fee: £5.
    Website: Click Here (prize details are on the Submissions Guidelines page).

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.

WriteBuzz Writing Competitions.  WriteBuzz is a ‘literary hub’ for writers which runs regular writing competitions of various types.  Subscribers can enter free; others pay an entry fee.  Subscribers can also publish their work on the site.  Well worth a visit.
    Closing: Various dates.
    Prizes: Various.
    Entry Fee: Various. 
    Website: 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.

Authearth Writing Competitions.  I know nothing about Authearth except that it’s a new online community for readers, writers and cartoonists.  There are six categories in the monthly contest: Audio, Book Review, Book Chapter, Column Post, Poetry.  You post your entry on the site so that readers can vote for it (or not vote for it, as the case may be).
    Closing: Monthly.
    Prize: £50 each month.  There is an annual prize of £500 for the best overall winner.  In addition the best book published on Authearth in 2008 will win £1,000.
    Entry Fee: None - free to enter.
    Website: Click Here.

And now a word from our sponsor.  Hello.  I’m Michael Shenton, creator of this website and author of Stiff Competition, winner of the Peter Pook Humorous Novel Competition.  People who are looking for me through search engines can remember just about everything about the website save its name and, more distressingly for me, my name. They search for ‘Peter Pook author’, ’the man who wrote Peter Pook’, ‘that bloke who won the cars’ and all manner of other odd things, but never ‘Michael Shenton’. The sole purpose of this site is to get my name known in the hope that one day dozens of people will buy my current novel and any others I manage to get published.  So would you all kindly make a note of it.  Michael Shenton.  Thank you.

Trowell & District Writers Trust Open Story & Poetry Competition. This is the 11th 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: 14.7.08.
    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 come round.  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.

Oxfam Books Poetry Calendar Competition.  Oxfam Ireland is looking for six new poets to be published alongside six guest poets on the 2009 poetry calendar.
    Closing: 15.7.08.
    Prizes: Publication on the poetry calendar.
    Entry Fee: £5 or 5 euros.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2008.  This is said to be Britain’s most prestigious poetry prize for writers between the ages of 11 and 17.  Are there any others?  Can’t say I’ve come across any.  But hey, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt.  Let’s assume there are hundreds and this is the Big One.  There are two age categories: 11 to 14, and 15 to 17.  Poems can be any length and on any subject, and you can enter as many times as you like.
    Closing: 31.7.08.
    Prizes: 11 to 14 category (x 5) - A short residency at your school by some obscure, sorry leading poet.  15 to 17 (x 15) - A week long residential course at one of the Arvon Centres (more studying - just what any school kid dreams of).  Fifteen of the prizewinners will have their entries published in the winners’ anthology.
    Entry Fee: None - free to enter.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Fish Micro Fiction Showcase.  The Fish in the title refers to the Irish publisher running the show, not the theme.  Entries should be very short stories or poems, the former running to no more than 60 words, the latter to 8 lines.
    Closing: Monthly until 31.7.08.
    Prizes: The overall winner from each category will receive 500 euros plus a free personal website sponsored by E-Fastnet.  In addition there will be four monthly prizes of 25 euros in each category.  Winners will be published in the Fish anthology.
    Entry Fee: 2 euros.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Dream Quest Writing Competition.  This American contest, which has become a regular visitor to this site, is for short stories and poems.  The former can extend to 5 pages, while the latter can run to 30 lines (or walk if it’s one of those lazy pastoral affairs).
    Closing: 31.7.08.
    Prizes: Stories - $500, $250, $100.   Poetry - $250, $125, $50.
    Entry Fees: $10 for stories, $5 for poems.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Wells Festival International Poetry Competition.  Poet lauriate Andrew Motion ‘has kindly agreed to judge the shortlisted entries,’ they say.  Does that mean he’s waived his normal fee?  Call me a cynic if you will but I doubt it.  This is like saying the plumber has kindly agreed to fix the cistern.  The contest is for poems of up to 40 lines.
    Closing: 31.7.08.
    Prizes: £500, £200, £100.  Wyvern Prize (for a local poet): £50.
    Entry Fee: £4.
    Comp Page : Click Here.

Countryside Tales Autumn Poetry Competition .  Wax poetical about the countryside in autumn and chop off your musings at 40 lines and you could win a modest prize and a place in the autumn issue of Countryside Tales.  Fame at last.
    Closing: 31.7.08.
    Prizes: £50, £25, £15.  The three winning entries will be published, and others may be considered.
    Entry Fee: £3.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Winter Witch ‘Nightmares & Dreams’ Competition.  This contest from Winter Witch Books is for stories of up to 5,000 words and poems of up to 50 lines.  The theme should be obvious from the title of the contest, but because I know there are people out there who will think it’s about winter or witches, I’ve enclosed the relvant part in quotes.
    Closing: 31.7.08.
    Prizes: Adults - £100 and 3 x £25.  Under 16s - £50 and 3 x £15.
    Entry Fee: £4.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Manchester Poetry Prize 2008.  Poetry in Manchester?  I’d never have thought it possible. When I lived in the Moss Side district at the age of about 8 and casually mentioned that I’d written a poem, I was chased down the street by a howling mob of thugs waving clubs and machetes. ‘Girls, girls,’ I cried when they caught me, ‘calm down - I was only joking!’  And luckily they believed me.  I never uttered the P word again until I moved 200 miles south.  Now Manchester has, of all things, a Writing School (at the Manchester Metropolitan University), and this international contest is their baby.  To enter you submit a portfolio of unpublished poetry (three to five poems) with a total length of 120 lines.
    Closing: 1.8.08 (5pm).
    Prize: 1st - £10,000.  There is also a bursary for study at MMU to be awarded to an entrant aged 18-25.
    Entry Fee: £15 per portfolio.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Over The Edge New Writer of the Year Competition.  This one from Galway, Ireland is for fiction of up to 3,000 words and poems of up to 100 lines (or three poems of up to 40 lines each).
    Closing: 1.8.08.
    Prizes: 600, 300, 100 euros.
    Entry Fee: 15 euros.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Creative Competitor War Poetry Competition.  This is for peoms of up to 40 lines.
    Closing: 1.8.08.
    Prizes: £200, £150, £100.
    Entry Fee: £5.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Torbay Open Poetry Competition.  This is for poems of up to 50 lines. 
    Closing: 15.8.08.
    Prizes: Adults - £700, $300, £150.  Juniors - £200, £100.
    Entry Fees: Adults - £4 each £10 for three, £20 for six.  Price for a bucketful on application.  Juniors - £2 each, £5 for three.
    Details (send sae): Poetry Contest Details, The Administrator, c/o The Mount, Brixham, South Devon, TQ5 8QY.

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

Arvon International Poetry Competition.  This is the 14th of these annual contests for poems of any length and on any subject.  Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, who recently took time off from judging competitions to write a poem, is now back in action doing what he knows best, along with a couple of other poetry establishment worthies.
    Closing: 15.8.08 (5pm).
    Prizes: £5,000, £2,500, £1,000 and 3 @ £500.  Ted Hughes Enviromental Prize: £1,000.
    Entry Fee: £6.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Havant Literary Festival Open Poetry Competition.  This is for poems of up to 20 lines.
    Closing: 18.8.08.
    Prizes: £250, £100, £50.
    Entry Fee: £3.  Only one entry per person.
    Details & Entry Form (send sae): Denise Bennett, Competition Secretary, HLFS11 The Pallant, Havant, Hants, PO9 1BY.

Essex Poetry Festival 8th Open Poetry Competition.  This is another regular runner, as you will gather from the fact that it’s the 8th contest, but this year it offers something a little different - a fish competition, as indicated on the website by the line ‘Sole adjudicator: Catherine Smith’.  I have it on good authority that Bert Winkle, a rival fishmonger from the other side of town, will be the haddock adjudicator.  Entries for the poetry section should be no more than 40 lines.
    Closing: 30.8.08.
    Prizes: £500, £200, £100.  Runners-up - £10 in book tokens.
    Entry Fee: £3 each or £10 for five.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Write in France Competition.  This international contest has four categories: Poetry, Short Story, Screenplay and Play, any of which can be fictional or based on true-life events. 
    Closing: 30.8.08.
    Prizes (in each category): 100 euros plus a place on a weekend writing course in Bergerac, France.
    Entry Fee: 15 euros for the first, 5 euros thereafter.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Aesthetica Creative Works Competition.  This one, from the cultural arts magazine Aesthetica, is for short stories of up to 2,000 words, poetry of up to 40 lines, and artwork.
    Closing: 31.8.08.
    Prizes: £500 in each category plus publication in the Aesthetica Annual.
    Entry Fee: £10.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Salopean Annual Poetry Contest.  This one comes courtesy of the Salopian Poetry Society and is for poems of up to 36 lines.
    Closing: 31.8.08.
    Prize: £200, £100, £50.
    Entry Fee: £3.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Rhymers’ Poetry Competition.  Is it a crime to rhyme?  It is according to many poetry contest promoters, but not to Early Works Press, who are looking for rhyming poems of up to 40 lines.
    Closing: 31.8.08.
    Prizes: £50, £20.  There is also a £5 fee for winners and runners-up published on the website.
    Entry Fee: £3 each or p to 6 poems for £12.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Chroma International Queer Writing Competition.  Queer here is a reference to sexual orientation.  I wouldn’t be able to use the word in this context were it not for the fact that Chroma use it themselves, so I’m grateful to them for this small liberation in difficult and dangerous times.  Chroma is a magazine, incidentally.  The contest is for stories of up to 5,000 words and poems of up to 50 lines.
    Closing: 1.9.08.
    Prizes: £300, £150, £75.
    Entry Fee: £5.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Nottingham Open Poetry Competition.  This annual contest comes from the Nottingham Poetry Society.  Poems of up to 40 lines are required.  Also required is little initiative to find the comp page, as they give no direct link on the homepage, nor indeed any mention of the contest.  A treasure hunt - what fun!  Sorry, but I’m going to spoil your enjoyment by revealing the solution.  Go to the ‘Poetry Nottingham International’ page (the link is on the side navigation bar), and the competition link can be found on that page.  I know this because it was the same last year and the year before.  They are probably wondering why they don’t get many entries.
    Closing: 8.9.08.
    Prizes: £300, £150, £75.
    Entry Fee : £3 each for £10 for four.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Ragged Raven Poetry Competition.  This annual contest is is unusual in that it is for poems of any length on any subject.  At last, a chance to really expatiate your theme - and of course to send the judges to sleep.
    Closing: 31.10.08.
    Prizes: 1st - £300.   Runners-up (4) - £50.
    Entry Fee: £3 each, £10 for four.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Poetry Society National Poetry Competition.  This well-known contest, according to the website, attracts entries from Nantwich to Nairobi.  I’m not sure why people in Nantwich send their entries to Nairobi, but it may be because it’s cheaper, as no one cashes the cheques.  The contest carries a good deal of prestige in the poetry world.  However, the organisers have not been able to show us anyone who has won it and become an international literay giant, so they have used a photo of Audrey Hepburn instead, a chorus girl who never entered the contest but who was discovered and found fame as an actress.  Well, same sort of thing, innit?  To comply with the rules, you must curb your creative enthusiasm at 40 lines.
    Closing: 31.10.08.
    Prizes: £5,000, £1,000, £500.
    Entry Fee: £5 for the first, £3 thereafter.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Speakeasy Open Creative Writing Competition.  Speakeasy is a Milton Keynes writers’ group named, as I point out each year, after the sleazy American grog dens of the 1920s.  However, their spokesman has denied any impropriety at their meetings.  Apparently they sip Earl Grey tea and talk in polite terms about the finer points of writing.  What a disappointment.  The contest is, as usual, for poems of no more than 60 lines and stories of up to 2,100 words.
    Closing: 31.10.08.
    Prizes: £125, £50, £25 in each category.
    Entry Fee: £4 for poetry. £5 for stories.  Discounts apply for multiple entries.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Leaf Books Poetry Competition.  This is for poems of any length on any subject.
    Closing: 31.10.08.
    Prizes: 1st - £200.   Runner-up - ten pocket-sized Leaf Books.
    Entry Fee: £3 each, £10 for four.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Carillon Magazine Poetry Competition.  This is for poems of between 15 and 20 lines on the theme of Silence.  Is there any such thing?  Even if that idiot next door turned his stereo off for five minutes you still wouldn’t have silence.  It would only seem that way.  There’d still be the clock ticking, the whirling fan in your computer, the sound of your breathing.  I think real silence would be quite scary.
    Closing: 1.11.08.
    Prizes: £80, £40, £20, £10.
    Entry Fee: £2 each or £3 for three.
    Comp Page: Click Here .

Segora Open Poetry Competition.  Here’s another poetry contest from French-based International Writers’ Block.  It is for poems of up to 40 lines on any subject.
    Closing : 14.11.08.
    Prize: £100, £30, £15.
    Entry Fee: £3.50 for one, £6 for two, £8 for three ... and so on.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Mizzmouse Poetry Competition.  Unusually, this one is for poems that rhyme and scan.  Proper poetry, in other words.  But don’t panic: you only have to manage this archaic task for a maximum of 20 lines.
    Closing : 29.11.08.
    Prize: £50.  The winner will be published on the website.
    Entry Fee: £1.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

New Writer International Competition.  This contest has three categories: Fact (essays, articles, interviews); Fiction (short stories, serials, novellas); Poetry (single poems and collections).  Factual items, which must have a writing-related theme, should be no more than 2,000 words.  The short stories can run to 4,000 words, while 20,000 words is allowed for novellas.  Curtail your poetic fancies at 40 lines for the single poems and submit between 6 and 10 poems in collections (no line limit for these).
    Closing: 30.11.08.
    Prizes: Fact - £150, £100, £50.   Fiction - £300, £200, £100 (short stories); £300 (novella).  Poetry - £100, £75, £50 for singles, £300, £200, £100 for collections.
    Entry Fees: Fact - £5.   Fiction - £5 for short stories, £15 for serial/novella.  Poetry - £5 for singles, £12 for collections.
    Comp Page: Click Here .

James W Hackett International Haiku Award.  If you’re wondering about the line limit for this one, better move on.
    Closing: 30.11.08.
    Prizes: There are two first prizes of £70 and a year’s subscription to The British Haiku Society.
    Entry Fee: £3 ($6) for up to three entries, £1 ($2) thereafter.
    Website: Click Here.

Cafe Writers Poetry Competition.  Poems of up to 40 lines for this one from Cafe Writers of Norfolk who, despite their name, actually meet in a bar, in view of which you won’t be surprised to learn that, according to their website, their meetings present ‘opportunities to read from the floor’.
    Closing: 30.11.08.
    Prizes: £750, £300, £150.
    Entry Fee: £4 each, £10 for three and £2 each thereafter.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Petra Kenny Poetry Competition.  This annual international contest is for poems of up to 80 lines.  There are three categories: General, Comic and Young Poets (14-18).   Alison Chisholm is among this year’s judges.
    Closing: 1.12.08 (USA: 31.12.08).
    Prizes: £1,000, £500, £250, plus an engraved Royal Brierley crystal vase.  Runners-up (3) - £125.  Comic Verse category - £250.   Young Poets category - £250, £125.
    Entry Fee: £3, US$5, Can$7.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Fellows’ Poetry Prize.  ‘Which fellows?’ you might ask, and the answer is, I suppose, the ones at Leicester University’s English Association, from whence the competition comes.  Poems of up to 30 lines are required.  The winner will be published in the English Association Newsletter and on the website.
    Closing: 31.12.08.
    Prizes: £500, £300, £200.
    Entry Fee: £10 for the first, £5 thereafter.
    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.