Wednesday 21 October 2020

Frights, fun and freebies

Thanks to Liz for telling me about this free to enter monthly competition. There's a prize of $500 Aus for a piece of flash fiction written against the clock. It sounds like fun, so I'll enter if I remember. First Friday, Furious Fiction's free flash ought to be hard to forget, but there's a good chance I'll manage.

Francesca Capaldi runs a competitions blog for the RNA. Not all the competitions are free, but she does her best to check they're not rights grabs and excludes those which are 'ridiculously expensive'.

My latest books, Slightly Spooky Stories IV is out now. As you've probably guessed from the title, it contains two dozen, not too scary stories, perfect for hallowe'en reading and is the fourth book in this series. They're all individual stories, so it doesn't matter what order you read them.

You might remember that I won last month's Secret Attic short story competition. Maybe it will be you this month, as they're running another one. There's a prize of £30, plus publication. Also on the site are poetry and flash competitions. Publication is currently the only prize for those.

Here's a playwriting competition, with a £500 prize.

Finally, thanks to Lynne Pardoe for passing on the details of this short story competition. As with all the competitions I mention, it's free. They want 500 words, and there's a lovely writer's hamper worth £500 for the winner!

8 comments:

carrie said...

Thanks, Patsy, and everyone who's sharing competitions, The chocolate one sounds right up my street so I'll definitely be giving that a go!

ados123 said...

Thanks for the competitions, Patsy, especially the chocolate one. I entered that last year and got no where, but it was fun to do.
You can sign up for the Australian flash fiction comp - they will send you the details on a Friday, what the requirements are for that month's comp. It means you can't forget! They do have hundreds if not thousands of entries however...
Alyson

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Congratulations on the fourth book in the series!

Marguerite said...

Thank you for the competitions, Patsy. Yes, the Australian one is definitely a bit of fun and they give feedback on the (several) printed stories 'what we like about...' IF you have time to read them all!
The chocolate one looks a bit of a challenge - but again, a bit of fun :)

Patsy said...

@ Carrie, Alyson and Marguerite – thanks for commenting, and letting me know you're interested in the competitions. Or is it just the chocolate? ;-)

@ Alex – thank you.

ados123 said...

Interested in the competitions, Patsy, although chocolate as a prize...
Alyson

New girl on the block said...

I submitted a short story to the Secret Attic monthly competition last week - thanks for the tip, Patsy. I received an email from them yesterday saying that as from 1 November, competitions will no longer be free to enter :)
So - get entries in before the end of October if you don't want to pay!

Patsy said...

@ Alyson – I've always wanted to win a hamper of... well, of anything really, but chocolate and writing goodies would be especially good.

@ New Girl – Thanks for the info. It seems a shame, but I can understand that running free competitions with cash prizes is something not many people will want to do long term.