Bread and Roses Poetry Award

Culture Matters is pleased to announce that the second Bread and Roses Poetry Award, sponsored by Unite, is now open for entries. It is part of our mission to promote a socialist approach to culture. The purpose of the Award is to create new opportunities for working class people to write poetry, and encourage poets to focus on themes which are meaningful to working class people and communities.

Submission Guidelines and Award Rules

1. You may enter up to three original, previously unpublished poems in English, each no more than 50 lines long.

2. You must be resident in the United Kingdom or Republic of Ireland.

3. Entry is free, and open to anyone regardless of trade union membership.

4. There will be five prizes of £100 each.

5. Entries should broadly deal with themes relevant to working class life, politics, communities and culture.

6. Entries should be sent to info@culturematters.org.uk by midnight on Friday 8 June, or by post to Culture Matters, c/o 8 Moore Court, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE15 8QE, to arrive on Friday 8 June. No entries will be accepted after that date.

Winners will be invited to an award ceremony in Durham on 13 July, linked to the Durham Miners’ Gala, with travel and accommodation costs paid. The best poems will be published in an anthology later in 2018.

Copies of the Bread and Roses Poetry Anthology 2017 are available to buy here.

Wigtown Poetry Competition

The competition closes on 8 June, with a prize-giving at Wigtown Book Festival (21-30 September 2018).  

Canterbury Festival Poet of the Year Competition

This is the 12^th year of the Competition, which is widely respected and forms a major part of the Festival year.   

From the entries received about 35 poems are chosen for the long list and these are published in an anthology; copies are available from the Festival Office.  A shortlist of poems is then selected and from these the winners are chosen.  

The Competition is generously supported by the School of English at the University of Kent who donate the University of Kent Prize of £200 for the winner, £100 for second and £50 for third places, £25 for the People’s Choice and the Best-Read Poem receives a bottle of sparkling wine courtesy of the Wine Room, Tankerton.  

So send in your poems of all types, long, short, tragic, funny, whatever you are moved to write and you may find yourself crowned the Canterbury Festival Poet of the Year 2018.

The Competition deadline is Monday 18 June 2018.  

The fee for entry is £5 per poem and please don’t forget to attach an entry form which can be downloaded here.  

The poem or poem sequence may be on any subject and in any style but must not exceed 60 lines in length excluding title and line breaks.  

Entries are judged anonymously 

The Terms and Conditions can be downloaded here. 

McLellan Poetry Prize

Part of the McLellan Festival 31st August - 9th September 2018

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This year's judge is Sinéad Morrissey.

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 1st prize £1500     2nd prize £300     3rd prize £150

6 commendations of £25

The competition closing date is 21st June 2018

Fee £6 for the first poem and £5 for each subsequent poem submitted on the same form.

Poems should be of no more than 80 lines (excluding title), in English and your own original work (no translations).

Link here

Bridport Prizes

This is one of the most prestigious writing contests in the British literary calendar.

Do you have a really good poem or short story? Or a few? I mean, really REALLY good?

• poem - no more than 42 lines
• short story - no more than 5,000 words.   
• flash fiction category - stories of up to 250 words 
• First Novel - 5,000 to 8,000 words

This year’s judges are Daljit Nagra, & (poems) Monica Ali (flash fiction and short stories) and Kamila Shamsie (First novel).

    Closing: 31st May (postmarked)

Prizes: 

In each of the main categories (Short Stories, Poems) - £5,000, £1,000, £500.  There are also ten runners-up prizes of £100.  These are called ‘supplementary prizes’ to make you feel less like an also-ran.  The top four poems will be submitted to the Forward Prize. 

Prizes in the Flash Fiction category are £1,000, £500, £250, plus three supplementary awards of £100.

Note: Entries must never have been published, self-published, published on any website, blog or online forum, broadcast nor winning or placed in any other competition.

    Entry Fees have increased:Poems - £9.  Short Stories - £10.  Flash Fiction - £8, Novel - £20
 
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Sand Submissions

SAND is an English-language literary journal published twice annually in Berlin. It features prose and poetry, translations, art and photography. Our contributors come from all over the world and include established and emerging writers, poets, artists, and translators.

We look for work that is fresh, well-written, accessible, and diverse, as we take pride in producing a beautiful journal that can be enjoyed by a wide audience.  We’re particularly interested in writing from perspectives that are generally underserved in literature, including work by women, people of color, people from the LGBTQ+ community, and people from the wider international writing community.

There is a good Q&A on Six Questions - a great idea for a blog!

Deadline: 6th July 2018

Link http://sandjournal.com/submit-your-work/

Mslexia submissions on the theme of cooking

Note: Open to women writers only.

Themed Writing
Twice annually we ask for themed poetry and prose submissions for the Showcase (previously New Writing) section of the magazine. Winners are selected by our Guest Editors (in the past they have included Julia Blackburn, Nicci Gerrard, Pascale Petit, Rachel Cusk and Sarah Dunant) and are published in the magazine. We also make a small payment for most submissions we publish.

We look for stories of up to 2,200 words, poems of up to 40 lines, and short scripts of up to 1,000 words (including character names and stage instructions).

Please note: we only accept up to four poems, two short stories and two short scripts per entrant.

 Issue 79: COOKING
Making a meal can be an act of love and sensual pleasure – or an act of hatred and grudging resentment. It can also be source of intense anxiety. Can I afford it? Will there be enough? Will they like it? Will it be on time? CLOSING DATE: 4 June 2018

Submitting your work
Entries are judged anonymously, so please put your name on a separate cover sheet and omit your name from your poem or story.

Or online here