Month: August 2023

September 2023 Competitions

August 23, 2023

Here’s my regular look at writing competitions I might enter during the coming month – some interesting ones this time.

  • First, we have one of the most prestigious competitions in the calendar, from Manchester. Up to 2,500 words, £18 to enter and a top prize of £10,000. The deadline is 1 September, so I hope you’ve got something nearly ready.
  • Also among the early ones is On the Premises magazine, which wants stories of 1-5,000 words by 1 September. It’s free to enter and first prize is $250. Stories must be inspired by a picture on the site (of closely packed trees).
  • Also with a deadline of 1 September, is the strange Owl Canyon Hackathon. Teams of two writers collaborate, each given a different final paragraph; they take it in turns to write the preceding 49 paragraphs, trying to steer events towards their own conclusion. The two stories are then split off and judged separately. I think that’s how it works. There may not be enough time to get organised, but the good news is it’s free to enter, with a $2,000 top prize
  • Terrain wants stories up to 5,000 words: entry is $20, the top prize $1,000, and the deadline is 4 September.
  • Juxtaprose wants stories up to 10,000 words: entry is $15, first prize $1,000, and the deadline is 6 September.
  • Publication is the only prize for Horror and Ghost stories of up to 5,000 words, but entry is free The deadline is 10 September.
  • Ovacome wants stories up to 1,500 words:entry is £8 and the prize £250. The contest supports an ovarian cancer charity, but stories need not be related to that. The deadline is 15th.
  • The Silver Apples Redemption prize is for stories rejected by other competitions or publishers. 1,500 to 4,00 words, £10 entry and a prize of £200 – the deadline is 15 September.
  • The Green Stories Project wants stories on the theme of ‘microbes’, highlighting the benefits of Environmental Biotechnology (you may want to watch their video). Stories should be 1000-3000 words and they also want two hundred words explaining the thinking behind the story. It’s free to enter and the prize is £500: enter by 21 September.
  • The annual contest in memory of Dinesh Allirajah is on the theme ‘The Uncanny’ this year. It’s free, the top prize is £500 and length must be 2-7,500 words. The competition closes on 22 September.

All the rest have a deadline of 30 September.

  • SaveAs want stories up to 3,500 words on the theme ‘All In the Mind’. Entry is £4 and the prize £200
  • The annual Hammond House competition is back, with the theme ‘Fate’. Entry is £10, top prize £1,000 and the word count should be between 1,000 and 5,000.
  • Crowvus would like a Christmas ghost story in the good old tradition. Up to 4,000 words, just £3 to enter, and a prize of £100.
  • Then we have Henshaw Press (now run by Hobeck Books) with their regular competition. 2,000 words, £6 to enter, and £200 prize.
  • Galley Beggar Press want up to 6,000 words. It’s $10 to enter and you could win $2,500
  • The Iowa  and John Simmons contest, for collections of stories of at least 150 pages, offers no prize except publication, but is free to enter.
  • Finally, Quagmire magazine’s second competition offers a prize of $350 CAD for stories between 1,000 and 5,000 words on the theme ‘Meaning, Purpose, Existentialism, Absurdism’. Entry is $10 CAD

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

After Impressionism

August 4, 2023

At the National Gallery, an exhibition that re-examines the innovative period that followed Impressionism, in both sculpture and painting. The focus is on the influence of three artists: Cezanne, Gauguin, and Van Gogh. Putting it simplistically there’s a suggestion that Cubism flowed from Cezanne’s work, Fauvism from Gauguin, and German Expressionism from Van Gogh.

Though it’s an enlightening framework, things are obviously more complex than that. To my untutored eye it all looks like a general explosion of originality, drawing on many influences as well as brand new thinking.

The exhibition, full of great stuff, is notably strong on pointillism, reminding us it isn’t just Seurat and Signac. I was also surprised yet again by more evidence of Picasso’s ability to produce brilliant work in every style, including of course, some that he helped invent.

St Francis at the National Gallery

August 2, 2023

This free exhibition features works by outstanding artists from many centuries, from a puzzlingly conservative Botticelli through Caravaggio, El Greco and Spencer to Zurbaran, taking in the Marvel comic Francis, Brother of the Universe. The notes gently mock the comic’s version of how St Francis received the stigmata through laser beams, but really it is no more dramatic than several paintings of the same crucial event, or Brother Leo’s actual first-hand account of a six-winged seraph.

The exhibition also features one of Francis’s own habits, presented in a golden frame. I suppose there is a suggestion that the habit can also be viewed as art, and indeed the exhibition offers a modern work using sacking. However, the habit also emphasises Francis’s historicity. Some of his feats (taming a wolf, walking through fire) resemble those attributed to older saints who are legendary bordering on mythical, but Francis is indisputably a real man. That raises the question of whether an exhibition organised around a theme tells us about the art or just about attitudes to the subject.

I suppose the message might ultimately be that artists use a theme to illuminate the concerns that mean most to them and their audience – Stanley Spencer using his own (strangely rotund) father to represent the saint. But whatever the rationale, it’s a great chance to see some fantastic paintings.

Dying Teddies

August 2, 2023

My story ‘Dying Teddy Bears’ ultimately got sixth place in the literary category of the Writer’s Digest competition. Writer’s Digest gives a generous number of prizes, so I’m getting a $25 voucher and a year’s free subscription. This bumps my sagging average back up to the historic level of one story recognised for every eight entered, so that’s encouraging.