JaC: Fiction Writing Contests

The International Rubery Book Award - Short Story Competition - Deadline: 2012/10/31

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 23:00:00 +0200

Deadline: 2012/11/01
Fee: £ 7.50 - $ 13 - € 9.50
Prize: £ 500

2012 Short Story Judge

Clare Morrall

It costs £7.50 (13.00 US$; 10€) to enter.
Please complete an entry form. This can be emailed or posted to us.
The award money will be paid in sterling via cheque or PayPal.*
Stories should be double spaced, pages consecutively numbered and should only be printed on one side of the paper if not submitted electronically.
Your name should not appear on your short story.
We prefer postal entries but electronic entries are perfectly acceptable.
There is a 3000 word limit.

First Prize £500 (approx. 805 US$; 608€)

Second Prize £150 (approx. 241 US$; 182€)

Third Prize £50 (approx. 80 US$; 60€)

Winners and shortlisted stories will be published in an anthology.

Closing date is 31st October 2012
Entry Form
Please print out the entry form either from the PDF, Word file or from your web browser. Once filled out please send it along with your submission and receipt of payment.

Please note that submissions should be sent via your country's usual postal service and not a courier service. For example, in the UK this should be Royal Mail; in the USA this would be the American Postal Service. If this is a problem for you please email us.

Either email your entry as a Word or PDF document to shortstory [at] ruberybookaward [dot] com (replace at and dot with symbols). Please send your story and entry form as separate documents. Alterantively, post your entry to us:

The Rubery Book Award
PO Box 15821
Birmingham
B31 9EA
UK.

Entry Fee
As we are an international award organisation we do accept entry fees in a variety of currencies. We understand people prefer to pay in their own currency, so if yours is not listed you may wish to select one that is and allow PayPal to convert it. Alternatively contact us requesting the currency you would like added.

It costs £7.50 to enter or 13.00 USD or 9.50€ (click pay online to see a further list of alternative currencies). We do accept cheques from UK residents provided they are in sterling. They should be made out to the Rubery Book Award. We ONLY accept cheques in British pounds. Cheques in other currencies will not be returned.

Entry Fee for Multiple Submissions
If you are sending multiple submissions we are offering a discount on 5 stories. Please go to Pay Online to view prices.

http://www.ruberybookaward.com/
http://www.ruberybookaward.com/information.html

Unbound Press Best Novel Award - Deadline: 2012/11/30

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 23:00:00 +0200

Deadline: 2012/12/01
Fee: £ 25 - € 30 - $ 40
Prize: £ 1,000

Closing Date: November 30, 2012
Shortlisted entries will be notified no later than January 31, 2013
1st Prize – £1000
2nd Prize – £500
3rd Prize – £250

Entry fee (per entry): £25 or €30 or $40
Competition Guidelines

We ask that you submit the first 10,000 words of your novel for consideration. This is just a guideline. If you find that you need to go over or under this guideline to reach a natural stopping point, like a chapter ending or a section break, that’s acceptable.
Shortlisted entrants will be notified no later than January 31, 2013 at which time you will be asked to supply the balance of your novel. Our goal is to announce the winners no later than March, 2013.
There is no theme. All styles and genres are welcome.
Multiple entries are accepted but must be accompanied with an entry fee.
Simultaneous submissions are accepted but please let us know as soon as possible if your entry has been accepted elsewhere or won/placed in another writing competition. Entry fees will not be refunded in this case.
Entries may be submitted via email or post. Entries submitted via email must be attached in the form of a Word (doc) or Rich Text Format (rtf). Entries submitted via post must be printed on standard-size paper and double-spaced. Entries sent via post will not be returned (please don’t send your only copy).
Please be kind when formatting and adhere to general rules of courtesy (i.e. 12pt standard font, double-spaced, pages numbered).
Your name, email address or any other distinguishing names should not appear in the body of your novel. For example, please don’t put your name and email address in the header or footer. It is fine to include the title of your submission.
Submissions must be entrant’s own original work and must be previously unpublished (if your work has appeared in an online workshop or a member’s only writer’s chat – etc – it is eligible for this competition).
International submissions are welcomed but all entries must be written in English.
As a condition of submitting, the author must hold the copyright of the entry. If the entry is successful Unbound Press will have one time publicatiopn rights. Copyright remains with the author.
Entries will be judged anonymously and all decisions are final.
ABOUT PUBLICATION! Please note that ALL entries will be considered for publication but publication is NOT offered as part of the prize. This is an excellent opportunity for your work to be read by industry professionals but, please be clear on this point, the Unbound Press Best Novel Award offers a cash prize only.

How to Enter

You have two options: Online and Postal

Online Entry

You may submit your entry(ies) via email and pay the entry fee(s) online via PayPal. You do NOT need a PayPal account to use this option. Click the appropriate button below and you’ll be re-directed to a secure PayPal shopping cart. Please notice that you have the option to pay online in GBP (£), EURO (€) and USD ($). If you wish to enter more than one submission you will be given the opportunity to change the quantity on the PayPal shopping cart.
If you do not wish to pay online you may still submit your entry via email and send a cheque via the post. We can only accept cheques for GBP £ from a UK bank. Please make cheques payable to ‘Unbound Press’ and post to: Unbound Press, PO Box 16864, Glasgow, Scotland G11 9DJ.

Once you have a receipt/transaction number submit your entry via email to: unboundpress@gmail.com
Be sure to cut and paste your PayPal receipt/transaction number into the body of the email (or let me know that payment has been sent via post)
State the competition category in the subject line of your email
In the body of the email please include the following:

Name
Postal Address
Title of Entry and Word Count
PayPal Receipt/Transaction Number

Don’t forget to attach your novel! Atachments must be in the form of a Word(doc) or Rich Text Format (rtf). It would also help if the document name is the title of your novel.

Postal Entry

Entries submitted via post should be printed on standard-size paper and double-spaced. Please adhere to common formatting (such as 12pt font, Times New Roman – or similar standard font – double-spaced). We do not reject entries based on varied formatting but we do appreciate standard style.
Entries sent via email will not be returned. Please do not send your only copy.
If you do not have an email address or you wish to receive hard-copy confirmation that we received your entry, please include a SASE or postcard.
Postal submissions should be accompanied by a cheque from a UK bank made out to ‘Unbound Press’. We can only accept cheques in GBP (£).
Postal submissions should be accompanied by a coversheet stating the following:

Name
Postal Address
Title of Entry and Word Count
Email address (if available)

If you are more comfortable using a Competition Entry Form, please feel free to click the button below, print and submit with your postal entry.

http://unboundpress.files.wordpress.c ... ompetition-entry-form.pdf

Announcement of Winners
Winners and runners-up will be notified by email after the closing date and results posted on the Unbound Press website.

http://unboundpress.com/
http://unboundpress.com/competitions/ ... d-press-best-novel-award/

Unbound Press Flash Fiction Award - Deadline: 2012/06/30

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 22:00:00 +0200

Deadline: 2012/07/01
Fee: £ 5 - € 8 - $ 10
Prize: £ 500 - Publication - 1 free copy

Closing Date: June 30, 2012
We always make an effort to notify winners within 30 days of closing date.
1st Prize – £500, publication in 2012 print anthology, 1 free copy
2nd Prize – £250, publication in 2012 print anthology, 1 free copy
3rd Prize – £125, publication in 2012 print anthology, 1 free copy
Shortlisted – publication in 2012 print anthology, 1 free copy
Honourable Mentions – offer to publish in the quarterly ejournal Spilling Ink Review
Entry fees:
We accept GBP (£), EURO (€) or USD ($)
1 entry £5 / 3 entries £10
1 entry €8 / 3 entries €16
1 entry $10 / 3 entries $20

Guest Judge: Zoë Strachan
Zoë Strachan is the author of Negative Space (won a Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for the Saltire First Book of the Year Award) and Spin Cycle (both published by Picador). Her most recent novel, Ever Fallen in Love, is published by Sandstone Press and has been shortlisted for the Green Carnation Prize and longlisted for London Book Award. Zoë also writes short stories, essays, journalism and drama. Her work has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and Radio 3. She has received two writer’s bursaries from the Scottish Arts Council, a Hawthornden Fellowship and was UNESCO City of Literature writer-in-residence at the National Museum of Scotland. In 2008 she was awarded a Hermann Kesten Stipendium and spent time in Nuremberg, and in 2009 she received a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship which took her to France to write. She lives in Glasgow where she teaches part time on the prestigious Creative Writing programme at the University of Glasgow. Her play Old Girls opened the 2009/10 season of A Play, a Pie and a Pint at Oran Mor in Glasgow, and her short opera Sublimation (with composer Nick Fells) toured in May 2010 with Scottish Opera and will be performed in South Africa by Cape Town Opera in November 2010. For more information about Zoë: www.zoestrachan.com

Competition Guidelines

500 words max (no minimum).
There is no theme. All styles and genres are welcome.
Simultaneous submissions are accepted but please let us know as soon as possible if your entry has been accepted elsewhere or won/placed in another writing competition. Entry fees will not be refunded in this case.
Entries may be submitted via email or post. Entries submitted via email must be attached in the form of a Word (doc) or Rich Text Format (rtf). Entries submitted via post must be printed on standard-size paper and double-spaced. Entries sent via post will not be returned (please don’t send your only copy).
Please be kind when formatting and adhere to general rules of courtesy (i.e. 12pt standard font, double-spaced, pages numbered).
Your name, email address or any other distinguishing names should not appear in the body of your story. For example, please don’t put your name and email address in the header or footer. It is fine to include the title of your submission.
Submissions must be entrant’s own original work and must be previously unpublished (if your work has appeared in an online workshop or a member’s only writer’s chat – etc – it is eligible for this competition).
International submissions are welcomed but all entries must be written in English.
As a condition of submitting, the author must hold the copyright of the entry. If the entry is successful Unbound Press will have one time publicatiopn rights. Copyright remains with the author.
Entries will be judged anonymously and all decisions are final.

How to Enter

You have two options: Online and Postal

Online Entry

You may submit your entry(ies) via email and pay the entry fee(s) online via PayPal. You do NOT need a PayPal account to use this option. Click the appropriate button below and you’ll be re-directed to a secure PayPal shopping cart. Please notice that you have the option to pay online in GBP (£), EURO (€) and USD ($). If you wish to enter more than one submission you will be given the opportunity to change the quantity on the PayPal shopping cart.
If you do not wish to pay online you may still submit your entry via email and send a cheque via the post. We can only accept cheques for GBP £ from a UK bank. Please make cheques payable to ‘Unbound Press’ and post to: Unbound Press, PO Box 16864, Glasgow, Scotland G11 9DJ.

Once you have a receipt/transaction number submit your entry via email to: unboundpress@gmail.com
Be sure to cut and paste your PayPal receipt/transaction number into the body of the email (or let me know that payment has been sent via post)
State the competition category in the subject line of your email
In the body of the email please include the following:

Name
Postal Address
Title of Entry and Word Count
PayPal Receipt/Transaction Number

Don’t forget to attach your story! Atachments must be in the form of a Word(doc) or Rich Text Format (rtf). It would also help if the document name is the title of your story. If you are submitting more than one entry, it is perfectly acceptable to send them in one email.

Postal Entry

Entries submitted via post should be printed on standard-size paper and double-spaced. Please adhere to common formatting (such as 12pt font, Times New Roman – or similar standard font – double-spaced). We do not reject entries based on varied formatting but we do appreciate standard style.
Entries sent via email will not be returned. Please do not send your only copy.
If you do not have an email address or you wish to receive hard-copy confirmation that we received your entry, please include a SASE or postcard.
Postal submissions should be accompanied by a cheque from a UK bank made out to ‘Unbound Press’. We can only accept cheques in GBP (£).
Postal submissions should be accompanied by a coversheet stating the following:

Name
Postal Address
Title of Entry and Word Count
Email address (if available)

If you are more comfortable using a Competition Entry Form, please feel free to click the button below, print and submit with your postal entry.

http://unboundpress.files.wordpress.c ... ompetition-entry-form.pdf

Announcement of Winners
Winners and runners-up will be notified by email after the closing date and results posted on the Unbound Press website.

http://unboundpress.com/
http://unboundpress.com/competitions/ ... ress-flash-fiction-award/

100 Words or Fewer Writing Contest - Contest Number Ten - Deadline: 2012/07/18

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 22:00:00 +0200

Deadline: 2012/07/19
Fee: $ 15
Prize: Money

Official Guidelines

Please read the following guidelines carefully. It would be a shame to be disqualified on technical grounds.

1. What is the format for entries?

Enter your 100 words or fewer story inside the text of an email message.

Attachments will not be considered.

Present your name, mailing address, repeated email address, and your story's word count at the top of your entry. (This will allow us to match author/payer in our records.)

We require good grammar and spelling. Demonstrably incorrect paragraphing, grammar, or spelling is cause for return of your story and refund of your payment.

JUSTIFIED LINES ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE! Use a plain 12 point font. We greatly prefer New Courier or Times New Roman.

2. What are the locations of entrants?

Entrants may be located anywhere on Earth.

3. Must the entries be original?

Your entry must be original, in English, unpublished and not accepted by any other publisher or producer at the time of submission. 100 Words Or Fewer Writing Contest retains one-time publication rights to the First and Second winning entries, to be published once on the 100 Words Or Fewer Writing Contest website.

No revisions of stories evaluated and critiqued on from any 100 Words Or Fewer Writing Contest will be accepted. Revisions from other contests you entered are certainly acceptable.

4. Is there a given topic?

Yes. For Contest Ten, there will be four topics: ONE: “THE ENCOUNTER,” TWO: “LOCKED OUT,” THREE: THE WEARY ENFORCER," and FOUR, "HE ALWAYS DID THE DISHES." In every case, anything lewd or libelous will be discarded immediately. The payment will not be returned.

5. Is the word count limitation firm?

Yes! Entries exceeding the word limit will not be considered. Type the exact word count (counting every single word, except the title and contact information) at the top of your entry.

6. What are the fees?

Please use Paypal for secure payment of entry fee ($15.00); entry plus checkmark evaluation ($25.00); entry, checkmark evaluation and critique ($60.00); and critique alone ($40.00). (An entrant may decide on a critique after sending in a story.) Under special circumstances, a check sent directly to us will be acceptable.

Three entries will earn you a free checkmark evaluation.

Four entries will earn you a free critique!

Possible $10 additional:

WRITERS MUST IDENTIFY THEMSELVES!!!
We spend a ridiculous amount of time trying to connect payer to writer, address (in PayPal) to writer, and sometimes pen name to paying name. We need the identification in the original email as follows:

Name of writer,
Name (not business name) of payer if it is different from that of writer,
address with zip code and phone number;
one email address.

We apologize, but because of the time involved, we now impose an extra $10 fee if the above information is not readily available to us.

7. What is the deadline?

The deadline for Contest Ten is July 18, 2012.

(Note this is a four month contest.) Any manuscript received after the deadline will not be considered. Entries may be sent immediately.

8. How will I know if I have won?

The four winners and ten honorary designates for Contest Ten will be determined by our Final Judge, Erica Bauermeister, on or before August 14th, 2012. Prizes will be issued by mail on August 15, 2012. The Winning writers and their stories, along with names of Honorary designates, will be posted on the website by August 17, 2012, or earlier.

9. May I send more than one entry?

Certainly. We welcome each entry. Fees are as stated in 6., above.

10. What is the basis for your decisions regarding each entry?

Judges will look for the following:

(1) immediate pull of the story’s fictional world,

(2) believable characters,

(3) voice, which should contain a personal flavor and possibly humor,

(4) intensity and drive of focus,

(5) power of images,

(6) cadence and flow of sentences,

(7) overall structural integrity,

(8) beauty of language,

(9) suspense,

(10) plot twist, or ending that concludes a coherent story,

(11) power of ending, and

(12) overall emotional impact.

Judges will first segregate stories into higher and lower groups. Stories with higher rankings will be read again and narrowed down for further segregation. This process will be repeated until our final judge determines all four winners. At each point, judges’ decisions are final.

http://www.100wordsorfewerwritingcontest.com

Knightville Poetry Contest & Machigonne Fiction Contest - Deadline: 2012/06/18

Sun, 17 Jun 2012 22:00:00 +0200

Deadline: 2012/06/19
Fee: $ 15
Prize: $ 1,000

Our 2012 contests are open! Entry period is March 1-June 18, 2012 (postmark). Entries are $15.

KNIGHTVILLE POETRY CONTEST: $1,000 for an exceptional work of narrative and/or experimental poetry. Three poems per entry. Up to 300 lines per poem. Judged by National Poetry Series winner JEANNE MARIE BEAUMONT.

MACHIGONNE FICTION CONTEST: $1,000 for an exceptional work of literary and/or experimental fiction. Submit up to 7,500 words: anything from flash to the long story. Novel excerpts are welcome if the manuscript functions as a stand-alone story. We do not publish illustrations. Judged by Novelist and Essayist RICK BASS.

KNIGHTVILLE POETRY CONTEST JUDGE

Jeanne Marie Beaumont is the author of three books of poetry, most recently, Burning of the Three Fires, which was a finalist for the 2011 Writers’ League of Texas Book Award, and Curious Conduct. Her first book, Placebo Effects, was selected as a winner in the National Poetry Series. She also won the Dana Award for Poetry and The Greensboro Review literary award for poetry. Her poems have been included in two dozen anthologies and textbooks, including Good Poems for Hard Times, The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, The Norton Introduction to Literature, 9th ed., and Poetry Daily: 366 Poems from the World's Most Popular Poetry Website. She was co-editor of the literary magazine, American Letters & Commentary, from 1992-2000. With Claudia Carlson, she co-edited the anthology, The Poets' Grimm: Twentieth Century Poems from Grimm Fairy Tales.

"Afraid So," a poem from Curious Conduct, was made into a short film by the same name (narrated by Garrison Keillor) by award-winning filmmaker Jay Rosenblatt. The movie has been screened at numerous international film festivals, on the IFC, and at the Museum of Modern Art. She served as director of the annual Advanced Poetry Seminar from 2006-2010, and she currently teaches at both The Unterberg Poetry Center of the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan, and at the Stonecoast MFA Program in Maine.

MACHIGONNE FICTION CONTEST JUDGE

Rick Bass grew up in Houston, and started writing short stories on his lunch breaks while working as a petroleum geologist in Jackson, Mississippi.

Bass has published more than 20 books of essays and novels, and has worked passionately for environmental causes all over the world. His honors and awards include a PEN/Nelson Algren Award Special Citation for fiction, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, and the James Jones Literary Society First Novel Fellowship for Where the Sea Used to Be. He was a finalist for the Story Prize in 2006 for his short story collection The Lives of Rocks. He was a finalist of the National Book Critics Circle Award for his autobiography, Why I Came West. He was also awarded the General Electric Younger Writers Award.

Bass lives in the remote Yaak Valley of Montana, where he works to protect his adopted home from roads and logging. He serves on the board of both the Yaak Valley Forest Council and Round River Conservation Studies. His papers are held at the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library at Texas Tech University and Texas State University–San Marcos.

THE NEW GUARD 2012 contest readers are looking forward to reading your work! You can submit online via our submissions manager or by postal mail with a check for the entry fee, which is $15 for either contest. Contest winners and all finalists get two free copies of TNG, and each submission will be carefully considered for publication. Final judging is blind.

We accept .doc or similar files–no PDFs, please. We do pay strict attention to word and line count. TNG accepts previously unpublished work only. Any size print run or online publication (including blogs and/or social networking) disqualify your entry. Simultaneous submissions are accepted, provided we're notified upon publication elsewhere. If we accept your story or poem for publication, we trust you will remove that story or poem from all other contests upon our acceptance of your work.

TNG retains standard first publication rights; all rights immediately revert to the writer upon publication. Please note that TNG cannot return manuscripts. We are not presently accepting submissions aside from our contests.

http://www.newguardreview.com/

Multi-Story 1500 Word Contest - Deadline: 2012/04/30

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 22:00:00 +0200

Deadline: 2012/05/01
Fee: £ 5
Prize: £ 300

Multi-Story hosts bi-monthly competitions for short stories of various lengths. Our
judges are professional writers, agents, editors and publishers.

Our highly successful flash fiction competition closed on 29th February, see
Competition Results for the final results.

The latest competition is for a story of no more that 1500 words, and the theme is
yours to choose. You can enter as many stories as you wish and the closing date
is 30th April 2012.

For full details see Competition Rules.

Entry Fee

£ 5 for one entry

£ 8 for two entries.

Prizes

1st £ 300

2nd £ 100

3rd £ 50

Five runners-up will each receive a download of the excellent Nail Your Novel
kindly provided by editor, novelist and journalist Roz Morris.

Our competitions are open to writers of all ages and nationalities but entries must be in English. We very much welcome entries from overseas.

Entries must be the entrant’s own work and must not have been prize winners in any other competition, or published commercially either on-line or in print.

Stories which have been work-shopped on writing/peer review sites are eligible.

Entry fees must be paid before submission.

Entries should be submitted as an email attachment in either Word, Works or PDF format. Please note these are the only formats we accept.

When submitting multiple entries each must be on a separate attachment.

There must be nothing on the manuscript to identify the entrant.

A word count should be given under the title.

The accompanying email should be headed Competition Entry and include the title of your story and your name.

The word limit for the current competition is 1500 (fifteen hundred). Please note this does NOT include the title and legitimately hyphenated words count as one word only. You can use less but not more.

Entries for the current competition close at midnight (GMT) on 30th April 2012.

A long-list will be published on this site two weeks after the closing date. The final results will be available within four weeks of the closing date. Winners will be notified by email.

Winning entries will be published on this site.

No corrections can be made after receipt, nor entry fees refunded.

Entries will not be returned so keep a copy.

Copyright remains with the author.

Failure to comply with the entry requirements will result in disqualification. If you have any queries regarding the rules please Contact Us.

The judge’s decision is final. No correspondence will be entered into.

http://www.multi-story.co.uk/
http://www.multi-story.co.uk/competitionrules.html

Stories for Children (age-range 5-8 years) Competition - Deadline: 2012/08/31

Thu, 30 Aug 2012 22:00:00 +0200

Deadline: 2012/09/01
Fee: £ 5
Prize: £ 100 - Publication

Entry form details and rules:-
PRIZES:- 1st £100 plus small book publication, 2nd £50 plus website publication 3rd £25 plus website publication
JUDGED by the Thynks Team

Rules;-

For postal entries:- (For online entries click HERE)
1. Entries will be disqualified if not in accordance with the rules.
2. Stories MUST be your own work and not previously published or accepted for publication.
3. Manuscripts must be typed and written in English and can be up to 5000 words.. Please keep your own copy as they will not be returned.
4. The title of your story, your name, address and telephone number, plus email if you have one, must be typed on a separate sheet of paper to your manuscript - a number will be put on this sheet when the work is listed. Please use a pseudonym if you know anyone in the Thynks Team. The manuscript itself should only bear the title to be typed on each page.
5.If you have an email address then receipt of your entry plus results of the competition can be sent to you. Results will be displayed on the website:- http://www.thynkspublications.co.uk/competitions
6. Deadline is August 31st 2012. (If there are very few entries then the deadline will be extended and entrants given the option of staying in the competition or withdrawing and being refunded)
7.Winners to be announced on November 30th 2012 and prize monies distributed. The prizewinners will have their stories published on the website - please allow time for this to be done..
8.Copyright remains with the authors but Thynks Publications Limited reserves the rights to publish the story in various forms.
9.The entry fee of £5 per story needs be sent along with the MSS and Identification sheet. UK Cheques or postal orders are acceptable (no cash) and should be made out to 'Thynks Publications Limited.' Poets paying in foreign currencies will need to enter online.
10.Correspondence cannot be entered into. The Judges decisions are final. Good luck to all entrants.

http://www.thynkspublications.co.uk
http://christinemichael.org/StoriesForKids5-8Postal.html

Are you Devious at Heart? - Deadline: 2012/05/01

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 22:00:00 +0200

Deadline: 2012/05/02
Fee: $ 10
Prize: $ 100

Annual Flash Fiction Contest

The Pikes Peak Branch of the National League of American Pen Women Inc. sponsors an annual flash fiction contest. This national contest challenges authors to "tell a story" using only one hundred words. This year's creative submissions came from around the country.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
2012 Flash Fiction Writing Contest
Pikes Peak Branch
National League of American Pen Women

Theme: "Are You Devious at Heart?"

Submission Guidelines:

Entry fee is $10 for the first entry, $8 per each additional entry (there is no limit on how many entries you may submit)
You may request an optional critique for $10 more per entry (if you submit multiple entries, be sure to include the title of the story you’d like critiqued, or $10 per story)
Entries must pertain to the theme

Should be narrative in form; that is, it should “tell a story”

All genres welcome
No poetry
Each entry cannot be longer than 100 words (titles not included in word count)
Entries must use proper manuscript format: double-spaced, indent each new paragraph, no extra lines between paragraphs, no bold face type or unusual font.

Include a cover page with the following information:
1. Author name
2. Story Title
3. Physical address
4. Phone number
5. Email address
6. Critique Requested (Yes or no)
7. Transaction ID/Amount Paid (you will receive this in the confirmation email from Paypal) or Check Number/Amount
Put the title on the manuscript. Do not put the author’s name on the manuscript, only on the cover page.
Entries must be postmarked by or received electronically by May 1, 2012
Submissions may be emailed or mailed, and must have a cover page, as detailed above
You may pay by Paypal/Credit Card or send a check payable to PPB-NLAPW (instructions for each found below).
Winners will be notified by May 15, 2012 by email
Manuscripts will not be returned unless you requested a critique, in which case they will be returned via email with the critique (or you may enclose a SASE for manuscript/critique return)

Notice: Entries not submitted in accordance with the above rules will not be judged and entry fees will not be returned.

TO SUBMIT:

If paying by Paypal-

Click on yellow “Payment” button to process payment with Paypal.
Complete payment, including the title of your entry and your name in the comments section.
Check the confirmation email from Paypal for your Transaction ID; record this ID# on the Cover Page of your entry.
Confirm your information/entry is complete by going over the Checklist (link found on main Contests page under “Checklist”)
Email or mail your entry via the means below, including your Cover Page. Emails should be pasted into the body of the email message, not formatted as an attachment.

If paying by Check-

Make check payable to Pikes Peak Branch National League of American Pen Women (or PPB-NLAPW)
Record the Check Number and Amount on your Cover Page.
Confirm your information/entry is complete by going over the Checklist (link found on main Contests page under “Checklist”)
Email or mail your entry via the means below, including your Cover Page. Emails should be pasted into the body of the email message, not formatted as an attachment.

Submissions to:
Shannon Lawrence
Flash Fiction Contest Chair
5685 Flag Way
Colorado Springs, CO 80919

OR

thewarriormuse@gmail.com

http://ppb-nlapw.org/
http://ppb-nlapw.org/contests.php

Switchback Flash Contest - Deadline: 2012/03/31

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 22:00:00 +0200

Deadline: 2012/04/01
Fee: Free
Prize: Publication (website)

Each month Switchback provides a prompt and we want you to send us your best work inspired by that prompt. The winning entry as decided by our editors will be featured on Switchback. Contest submissions can be poetry, fiction, nonfiction, or even art but must be 500 words or under. Please send us only one submission per prompt and only previously unpublished works. We accept simultaneous submissions but please notify us immediately of acceptance elsewhere. Make sure your name DOES NOT appear on the submission itself. The deadline for submissions is 5:00 pm on the last day of the month.

The March prompt is: "Three men walk into a bar."

http://www.swback.com/
http://www.swback.com/call/

Writers' Village Best Writing award - Deadline: 2012/03/31

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 22:00:00 +0200

Deadline: 2012/04/01
Fee: £ 10
Prize: £ 400 - $ 660

How to submit your entries for the Writers’ Village Best Writing Award spring 2012

1. Prizes total £550 ($900).

The prizes are: First Prize £400 ($660); Second Prize £100 ($160); Third Prize £50 ($80). Five further shortlisted entrants will gain a FREE entry for their story in the next round. Prize monies will be paid via PayPal (if entry was paid for by PayPal), or by a cheque payable in sterling pounds if entry was paid for by cheque.

The top three winners will be entitled to accredit themselves: ‘Winner, 1st prize [etc], The Writers’ Village Best Writing Award spring 2012, when approaching agents, publishers, editors (etc). Other winners will be entitled to use the phrase: ‘Shortlisted for the Writers’ Village Best Writing Award spring 2012'.

Winning entries will be showcased here on the Writers' Village site.

In the unlikely event that insufficient entries of reasonable quality are received to provide a fair basis for judging, no prizes will be awarded but all entrants will be returned their entry fees.

2. Types of entry accepted & judging criteria

Any form of short story may be submitted up to 3000 words and in any genre (eg. mystery, romance, fantasy, crime, science fiction, children’s, etc).

The work should not have been previously published in print media at the time of its submission to the contest. However, contestants are free to submit their stories to other contests, whether or not the stories win.

Playscripts and poetry may not be entered. (True, the definition of a ‘script’ or ‘prose poem’ may be arguable. But to ensure a level playing field for all entrants, anything that clearly appears to be a script or poem will be excluded and the judge’s definition of the term ‘clearly’ will be final :))

To be fair to new entrants, a story will not be considered for a cash prize if it has previously been entered in the competition or has otherwise received critical feedback from John Yeoman. For the same reason, the same contestant cannot win a cash prize at Writers' Village more than three times.

In judging entries, particular weight will be given to their power to move the reader, their originality and their demonstration of the craft skills of creative writing.

3. Deadline & timings

Entries must be received with payment by midnight (GMT) Saturday 31st March 2012. Winners will be announced by 30th April 2012 on the Writers’ Village website.

4. Presentation format

Prepare your stories exactly as you would for submission to an agent or publisher, with your full contact address plus e-mail and telephone number, included in the same file as the story.

The subsequent text should be in Times Roman or similar (no exotic fonts, please!), 11 or 12-point, double or 1½ spaced. Put your story title and page numbering in the header. (Presentation rules for the professional submission of work can also be found in The Writers’ & Artists’ Year Book, and similar manuals.)

5. How to submit entries

We would greatly prefer stories to be e-mailed as an attachment. Click here to e-mail us. Payment may also be made from this site by PayPal, using the PayPal button below

Important: in the Subject line of your e-mail put ‘Writers’ Village: spring 2012 entry: [your name]’. That way, the system will recognise it as a competition entry rather than spam :)

E-mailed attachments must be in the format: Word.doc, .docx, RTF, txt (plain text) or .odt (Open Office).

Alternatively, hard copy entries can be posted to: Village Guild, The Old School House, Leighton Buzzard, LU7 9DP, UK and a cheque drawn on a UK bank and payable in pounds sterling (GBP) enclosed with the entries. However, if you wish your work to be showcased on the Writers’ Village website, should you win a prize, your entry must additionally be e-mailed as an attachment around the time of entry or enclosed on a CD or floppy with your posted entry.

Entries will be accepted from anywhere in the world, provided that they are in the English language and that payment is received via PayPal or by a cheque in pounds sterling, drawn upon an account held in pounds sterling.

The single best entry that a contestant submits will be selected to go forward for final judging. In this way, every individual will stand an equal chance of winning in the final round.

6. How to pay for your entries

The entry fee is just £10 (approx $16). You may submit as many stories as you wish but each story must be accompanied by a fee of £10 (approx $16), paid either by PayPal or cheque.

Every entrant, winner or not, receives a brief expert critique of their stories.

Pay by PayPal: This is the fastest, easiest way to pay, especially if you want to be sure that your payment is received by the contest deadline. If you are paying your entry fee by PayPal, simply click on the PayPal button below and follow the instructions given. To submit more than two entries, please make each subsequent pair of entries a separate PayPal transaction.

Alternatively, you can send the fee directly from your PayPal account. Our PayPal address is: cwriting [at] btinternet.com (fill in the obvious bit in the middle!).

Or pay by credit card: Clicking on the "Buy Now" button below will also let you pay by credit card if you do not have a PayPal account.

Always be sure to include the note: "Writers’ Village entry spring 2012 [your name and the story titles]" if the form asks you to add 'instructions for merchant'.

Or pay by cheque: If you pay by cheque, it must be made out to 'Village Guild', drawn on a UK bank and payable in pounds sterling (GBP). Enclose with the cheque a note that clearly indicates your name, postal address, e-mail address and telephone number plus the title(s) of the stories you are submitting. Cheques should be posted to: Village Guild, The Old School House, Leighton Buzzard, LU7 9DP, UK.

Note: your submission can be enclosed as hard copy and mailed along with your cheque but if you wish your story to be showcased on the Writers’ Village site, should you win, it must also be sent electronically as an attachment around the time of entry or enclosed with your hard copy on a CD or floppy.

7. Disclaimer & Copyright

By the fact of entering, entrants attest that the work submitted is their own original composition, that they own the copyright, and that the work has not at time of entering been published in print media elsewhere.

Entrants will retain the copyright to their own submitted work and are free to submit it at any time for publication elsewhere, or for entry in other competitions.

Entries will not be returned. While every reasonable precaution will be taken for the safekeeping of entries, neither John Yeoman nor Writers' Village will accept responsibility for the loss or non-arrival of entries. Entrants are strongly advised to keep a copy of all entries.

If you would like confirmation that your entry has been received, either: for e-mailed submissions, tick 'Request read receipt' (under the Tools menu in Outlook Express) when sending your email or, for posted submissions, enclose a stamped addressed postcard.

Queries

Please feel free to e-mail any queries you may have about the contest by clicking here.

A tip: as always, start the Subject line ‘Writers’ Village’ so that your message will be given priority :)

Deadline reminder: entries must be received with payment by midnight (GMT) Sat 31st March 2012.

http://www.writers-village.org/
http://www.writers-village.org/competition-rules.php