Seen and Done

Here’s my regular look at writing competitions I might enter during the coming month (so no poetry or competitions that arenot open to UK writers, for example).

• Leicester Writes wants up to 3,500 words, with an entry fee of £7.00 and a prize of £175. The deadline is 2 July.
• Liminisa offers a week’s writing holiday at their retreat in Greece: entry is free, but you must follow them on social media. The maximum word count  is 1,500 and the theme is ‘A Room of One’s Own’, Deadline 2 July.
• Story Quarterly (from Rutgers) will take pieces up to 6,250 words: entry is $15 and the top prize £500. The deadline is 9 July.
• The H.G.Wells competition is back, with a theme of ‘Motion’. Up to 5,000 words, with a deadline of 10 July. The top prize is £1,000, while entry is £10.
• Wrekin Writers are again running the Doris Gooderson competition, with a deadline of 12 July. They want up to 1,200 words, entry is £5 and the top prize is £200: at least half the funds raised will go to the Severn Hospice.
• Hastings Book Festival has a word limit of 2,500, and entry fee of £7.50 and a prize of £250: deadline 14 July.
• LISP wants up to 3,000, with a deadline of 15 July.  Prizes have been shrinking recently, but I have to say this one does not look generous: £100 against an entry fee of £15.50. Earlier in the year, I must acknowledge, the fee would have been lower, but still – a prize that’s less than seven times the entry cost?
• The Adrift competition from Driftwood magazine will take pieces of up to 6,000 words: entry is $11, the prize is $500 and the deadline is again 15 July.
• With the same deadline, the Petrichor prize from Regal House looks for 100-350 pages of ‘finely crafted’ fiction. Entry is $25 and the prize $1,000.
• Hawk Mountain looks for a book-length collection of short stories: entry is $20 and the prize $1,000 plus publication. Deadline 15 July.
• One more with the same deadline: the Francine Ringold Award from Nimrod, open to pieces of up to 5,000 words, entry $12 and prize $500.
• The Aurora Prize, from the writers of the East Midlands, seeks up to 2,000 words. Entry is £9 and the prize is £500 plus a year’s membership of the Society of Authors: enter by 19 July.
• Munster Lit is back with the annual Séan Ó Faoláin competition. Entry is  €19 and the prize €2,000 plus a writing residency. The closing date is 31 July, as it is for all the remaining competitions.
• Creative Writing Ink want 3,000 words max, with a fee of £9 and a prize of £1,000.
• The Olga Sinclair prize, from Norwich, looks for up to 2,000 on the theme ‘The Sea’. Entry is £9 and the prize is £500.
• The Global Novel Writing Competition is free to enter, but there is no cash prize. Instead, you get free entry on to a course at the Writers’ College. They want first chapters up to 6,000 words plus a synopsis

Good luck if you enter any of these; if you get anywhere, please do let me know!