Thanks to Fiona for sending the link to this competition. The Scottish Wildlife Trust are looking for short stories, poems, essays, articles or letter and can be fiction or non-fictions, but must feature a real wild animal native to Scotland. There are some excellent prizes and as Fiona said, I've collected suitable ideas for this recently, so if I can find the time I'll give it a go.
Womag/competition news
Congratulations to Ruth who was a runner up in the Best summer competition - and thanks to her for passing on the details of the current Best competition. As Ruth pointed out to me, the T&Cs have now changed. By entering you grant Hearst all rights to your story - that means they'll own every entry and whether you win or not, you can't ever do anything with that story. I think it's deeply unfair and urge you to think very carefully before sending anything in.
Do you know any market news? Have you heard about any free to enter writing competitions? Or come across calls for submissions or other opportunities?
Are you researching, writing, subbing? Had any acceptances or rejections? Still waiting to hear back on outstanding submissions? Do you have a question? Can you offer tips or encouragement to other writers?
Here's a competition with categories for poetry, short fiction, non-fiction and unpublished books. There's a prize pool of $1,000.
This competition is for stories of 550 words or fewer which include a character with a print disability. The prize is an echo dot (that sounds familiar, but I'm not sure what it is) and a voucher.
My news
Yesterday our wedding anniversary, and launch day for Dependable Friends and Deceitful Neighbours in Little Mallow, the second book in my cosy mystery series. I'd very much appreciate anything you can do to spread the word e.g. sharing my social media posts, or this very short video.
The picturesque seaside village of Little Mallow is suffering a spate of robberies. Arnold Stewart, verger of St Symeon's interrupts a burglary in progress and saves the church's antique silver. His friend, schoolteacher Ellie Jenkins, is another victim. Who can be responsible? And are they also guilty of other, far worse, crimes?
Naturally, police officers Crystal Clere and Trevor Harris are investigating, and young Adam is asking many, many questions. Arnold's kind-hearted employer Reverend Jerry Grande is praying for answers, and for those involved. Cameron isn't so much interested in solving the crime as keeping Arnold safe and showing him the beauty the world has to offer. All those people are old friends of Arnold's.
His new friend Aurora is more interested in solving the mystery of Castle View. There's definitely something odd going on at the house next to Arnold's flat. Against his better judgement Arnold finds himself involved. He's even more suspicious of the neighbours to his other side. They're hiding something – he really hopes he's wrong about it being a body!
Can Arnold and his friends untangle the lies being told in Little Mallow?
As with all my books, Dependable Friends and Deceitful Neighbours in Little Mallow is available as an ebook or paperback, can be read via kindle unlimited, ordered in bookshops and requested at your library.
Here's a little film of the cute little beaky creatures.
On The Premises have a short story competition - 1,000 to 5,000 words, with an expert as one of the characters. First prize is $250.
Thanks to Fiona for sending the link to this free poetry competition, with £100 prizes. UK residents only.
And thanks to Sharon Boothroyd for this - Here's a free to enter love letters competition below: CD 31st August.
https://www.valwood.co.uk/val-wood-prize
We're still enjoying Orkney in the campervan. I've made some progress on the third book in my cosy mystery series (the first one is currently on offer at 99p / 99c)
Do you know any market news? Have you heard about any free to enter writing competitions? Or come across calls for submissions or other opportunities?
Are you researching, writing, subbing? Had any acceptances or rejections? Still waiting to hear back on outstanding submissions? Do you have a question? Can you offer tips or encouragement to other writers?
Any other writing related news, questions and comments are also welcome and appreciated. As well as allowing us all to share information, help and encourage each other, comments show editors, competition organisers and others that the blog is read and will therefore be more likely to answer my questions, or provide information for me to share with you.
Here's some information from The People's Friend about response times, and other things. I suggest reading the whole thing, but here's a snippet 'if you haven’t had an acceptance within a year of submission and you know your story was safely received, your story has been unsuccessful.' Although a year seems a long time, I very much welcome a definite cut off period.
We've reached Orkney now, but I'm a bit delayed with my picture processing (too much time spent taking more!) so these are some shots taken at RHS Harlow Carr on the way up.
Free book publicity
Discount Stuff on Twitter (yes, I still call it that!) will post about your free or discounted books if you message them.
All being well, there will still be regular(ish) posts, written and posted from the mobile writing retreat (aka our campervan). If any are sparse, or look like I got distracted before I finished them, it might be due to poor internet access, but will most likely be because I did get distracted! We're going to Orkney and there's so much there I want to see. Hopefully you'll make allowances.
Competition result
I have the result of my book cover design competition. Thank you to everyone who took part - and congratulations to the winner!
Hannah, who is providing the prize, says –"I really enjoyed reading all of them. I would like to choose the entry of 'The Italian Connection' by Elizabeth McGinty as the winner as it sounds like a wonderful story that I would love to illustrate!"
*Anything vaguely writing related, or chocolate, cake, cash etc
Here's a competition from ALCS for educational writing. It's only for 'traditionally published' work though. I couldn't see how they defined that, but they do ask who the publisher is. The prize is £2,000 in total.
My news
Do you know any market news? Have you heard about any free to enter writing competitions? Or come across calls for submissions or other opportunities?
Are you researching, writing, subbing? Had any acceptances or rejections? Still waiting to hear back on outstanding submissions? Do you have a question? Can you offer tips or encouragement to other writers?
Any other writing related news, questions and comments are also welcome and appreciated. As well as allowing us all to share information, help and encourage each other, comments show editors, competition organisers and others that the blog is read and will therefore be more likely to answer my questions, or provide information for me to share with you.
I'm interested to know genres and forms you write – please let me know in the comments, and I'll try to find suitable competitions and publication opportunities for you. I ask, because sometimes I see something which seems very niche, or is just so different from the kind of thing I write, that I wonder if it's worth posting about it. Obviously I can't promise to find something for everyone, but I can avoid dismissing an opportunity someone would have considered perfect.
Free to enter writing competitions
Thanks to Alyson for the link to this short story competition. They want There's more info on the website to help. The prize is $3,000 plus possible publication in an anthology. If the anthology happens, writers of included work will earn a share of the royalties. Looks like anyone over 18 can enter.
Other opportunities
And if you enjoy writing prompts and exercises and/or find them useful, you might like to know that the kindle version of the little purple book is currently 99p / 99c.
btw, I'm now sharing more of my own writing news on the blog embedded on my website, so if you want to know what I'm up to (and are prepared to risk even more campervan trip photos that will appear here) take a look over there now and then.
