Wednesday 6 April 2022

Five fabulous freebies! (and flowers)


I've found five free competitions for my friends. Have fun figuring out fine and fabulously formatted entries. First here are a few of the frivolous flowers I'm famous for. (I photographed them on my phone, but that only works phonetically.)

Free entry competition news

The Anansi Archives spring competitions are open. There are small cash prizes for short stories, flash fiction and poetry. I expect I'll have a go at that one.


The Fitzcarraldo Editions novel prize offers publication with a $10,000 advance for works of at least 30,000 words. I don't have anything suitable for that and probably won't have by the 1st June when it closes.


Although the BCSA competition is for writing about the links between Britain and 
the lands now comprising the Slovak and Czech Republics or society in the republics, anyone may enter. First prize is £400, publication and the option to have the award presented at a dinner in London.

That's not for me. I don't know enough about the subject. No doubt that applies to a lot of people, so if you do have some knowledge or are prepared to research your chances might be quite good.


This competition from W&AYB is for British and Irish writers who consider themselves working class. They want the opening of a work in progress and are offering a prize bundle which includes £200 and mentoring.

I don't have anything started for this either, but it doesn't close until 18th July and they only need a short sample, so if inspiration strikes I could give this a go.


The Perito prize is for work on the theme of inclusive environments, accessibility and inclusive design and offers a £500 prize. The winner and selected entries will be published in an anthology. The theme interests me, so I'll try to come up with something.

Are you tempted by any of these? If not, why not?



9 comments:

Sheelagh said...

That's great information, Patsy, I might try some of those. Love your photos particularly the borage. Best of luck with your talk if I was anywhere near Stubbington library on 22nd I would love to be there but unfortunately I'm too far away. Thanks for all the info as per usual.

ados123 said...

Thanks, Patsy, for the competitions. Will definitely have a go at the Perito Prize - I had a story in the 2020 anthology with them.
Good luck with the talk. Too far from Cumbria, I'm afraid...
Alyson

New girl on the block said...

Thanks very much for all the info here. The Perito Prize sounds interesting, and we've got plenty of time to think about it too, which is good.
I've already sent a poem and a piece of flash fiction to Anansi Archive for their Spring competition. I was encouraged to do this because one of my poems was selected for their Winter anthology - didn't quite make the prizes, but good to be shortlisted.

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Knock 'em dead at the talk! At least knock some cash out of them so they buy your books.

Marian said...

Good luck with the talk! And thank you, as always, for the competition news.

Marguerite said...

I'm just waiting to see you on Gardener's World, Patsy! Might try Anansi - it was definitely on my to do list. Thank you for these. Good luck with the talk :)

ChrisC said...

Thanks for the comp info, Patsy. I had a flash story selected for anansi last time so will probably give this another go! Good luck with the talk!

Anonymous said...

Hope the talk goes well, Patsy. Unfortunately, I live over 200 miles away to be able to attend. Thanks for the competition info as well. I’ll definitely have a look through them.
Michael D

Patsy said...

@ Sheelagh – As we're making our plans to come over your way I have to agree it is a very long way for just a short talk! Good luck with those competitions.

@ Alyson – Oh, well done for last year's entry. That's hopeful for this year.

@ New Girl – Well done for the shortlisting. As with Alyson, getting close with one piece suggests you're on the right track.

@ Alex – You've spotted my cunning plan!

@ Marian – And thank you for commenting. The number of comments per post helps me gauge which subjects are of interest to my blog readers.

@ Marguerite – Some visitors to our garden last year suggested I send in a snippet for the 'your garden' segment. Maybe I should think about that.

@ Chris – Well done! And thanks for letting us know. It's so reassuring to hear people really do win, or get shortlisted etc

@ Michael – I'll let you off, that is a bit far to come.