My Novel

My Novel

UK Poetry Competitions (currently 36)

Writers’ Forum Poetry Competition.  This monthly contest from the glossy magazine Writers’ Forum is for poems of up to 40 lines.
    Closing: Monthly.  Entries arriving too late for one month go forward to the next.
    Prizes: 1st - £100.  Runners-up - A Chambers Dictionary.
    Entry Fee: £5 each for the first three, £3 each thereafter.  Enclose sae for free critique.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Forward Press Animal Antics Competition.  This is for poems of up to 30 lines about your pet.  In addition to the poem, you are expected to send a photo (of the animal, not you, you vain fool).
    Closing: Unknown.
    Prize: £1,000.
    Entry Fee: None.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Envoi International Poetry Competition.  This one, from the well-known though small magazine Envoi, is for poems up to 40 lines.
    Closing: 20th February, June and October each year.
    Prize: £150, £100, £50.
    Entry Fee: £3.00 per poem or 5 for £12.00.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Whidbey Writing Competition.  This contest from Whidbey Writers Workshop in the USA is open worldwide and is for fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry and writing for children or young adults.  Up to 1,000 words.  I should point out that they have a rather strange - and if I may say so lazy - way of selecting a winner for this one.  The judge reads submissions until he or she finds one that ‘knocks his/her socks off’.  Never mind that the next one might have divested the judge of his/her pants and woolly vest, the remaining entries are tossed aside without so much as a glance.  However, you can submit you entry again if it isn’t selected (try to get it in early, as entries are read in order of submission).
    Closing: Monthly.
    Prize: $50.
    Entry Fee: None - free to enter.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

And now a word from our sponsor.  Hello.  I’m Michael Shenton, creator of this website and author of Stiff Competition, winner of the Peter Pook Humorous Novel Competition.  People who are looking for me through search engines can remember just about everything about the website save its name and, more distressingly for me, my name. They search for ‘Peter Pook author’, ’the man who wrote Peter Pook’, ‘that bloke who won the cars’ and all manner of other odd things, but never ‘Michael Shenton’. The sole purpose of this site is to get my name known in the hope that one day dozens of people will buy my current novel and any others I manage to get published.  So would you all kindly make a note of it.  Michael Shenton.  Thank you.

Cinnamon Press Poetry Collection Award.  Entries for ths one should comprise 10 poems of up to 40 lines.
    Closing: 30.6.10, 30.11.10.
    Prize: £100 and your collection published.
    Entry Fee: £16 per batch of ten (includes a free copy of the winners’ anthology).
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Writing Spirit Award 2010.  This international contest from the Irish writers’ website Writing4all is for short fiction of up to 4,000 words, and poetry collections of between 4 and 10 poems, each poem running to no more than 20 lines.
    Closing: 30.6.10, 30.9.10, 30.11.10.
    Prizes: In each category - 1000 euros, 200 euros, 100 euros.  Winners and 17 others will be published in an anthology.
    Entry Fee: 7 euros.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Creative Writing Ink Writing Competition.  This contest from Ireland is for stories and poetry running to no more than 3,000 words.  Two days after I published the supplied entry details I received an email informing me that everything had changed.  Now, instead of posting your entry on the site forum you submit it by email.  A winner will be selected every month from each category and published in an e-journal.  From these selections a winner will be declared each quarter and awarded the prize.  I think I’ve got that right, but feel free to correct me if not.
    Closing: Monthly, sort of, but the prize is only awarded quarterly.
    Prize: 60 euros or a critique for a manuscript of up to 3,000 words.
    Entry Fee: None - free to enter.
    Comp Page : Click Here.

Dear Michael
   I discovered your excellent site a few months back and entered some of the poetry competitions. I have in all my long years never received a payment for anything I have written, but I today received an email from Cooldog Publications to say I have won second prize in their E-mag Poetry Competition! £50! What a great way to start the new year.
   I just had to write and say thanks to you for the trouble you have taken with your site and how much I appreciate the sense of humour that underpins it.
  This has given me a terrific boost.
                                                                                -  Carol Browne

Poole Literary Festival New Media Writing Prize.  This one, run in conjunction with Bournemouth University Media School, is for new ways of sharing writing with an audience.  None of that old-fashioned ‘you write, they read’ hardcopy stuff.  Your work has to be delivered by computer, mobile phone, Internet, etc, and should have an element of interactivity.  I used to think hardcopy was interactive.  You had to open a letter or go out and buy a newspaper or magazine to read what the writer had written, and you could drop it on the floor and stamp on it if you didn’t like it.  But interactive, it seems, is when you prod a button on a mobile phone or click a mouse to select some gimmicky option designed to liven things up.  No substitute for lively writing in my view, but I’m hopelessly old-fashioned.  Entries should be complete stories, poems or collections of poems.
    Closing: 15.9.10 (noon).
    Prizes: 1st - £250 and an Apple iPad.  Best Student New Media Writing - £250 plus Apple iPad.
    Entry Fee: None - free to enter.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Poems on the Buses.  Have you ever dreamed of having one of your poems printed on the side of a Guernsey bus?  No, I thought not.  Still, you might be interested in having a go at this international contest from the Guernsey Arts Commission, in which case submit a poem of up to 14 lines on any subject.
    Closing: 15.9.10.
    Prizes: Your poem displayed on a Guernsey bus for six months (until the end of the Guernsey Literary Festival).  Unfortunately you don’t get to choose the route.
    Entry Fee: None - free to enter.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Bard of the Fens Performance Poetry & Story Telling Competition. Entrants for this one from the John Claire Centre in Helpston, Cambridgeshire, must live no more than an hour’s travelling time from the Fens.  If shortlisted you will be required to perfom your entry at the literary festival on October 2 when the winner will be chosen.  X-Factor for poets!  There are three age categories: 6-12, 3-18, 19-and-over.  Performance times for these categories are 5 minutes, ten minutes and fifteen minutes.  Initially you submit your entry in writing.  This can be a poem (or poems) or a story told in rhyme.  The theme is Warriors.
    Closing: 24.9.10.
    Prize: Hope and Glory.
    Entry Fee : None - free to enter.
    Details: Claire Cottage, 11 Woodgate, Helpston, Peterborough, PE6 7ED.

Sentinel Literary Quarterly Poetry Competition.  This frequent visitor to my pages is for poems on any subject, running to a maximum of 40 lines.  The judge will be Geoff Stevens who holds something called the Ted Slade Award 2009 for Services to Poetry.
    Closing: 30.9.10.
    Prizes: £150, £60, £40.  The winners and selected entries will be published.
    Entry Fee: £3 each, £12 for five.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Tom Howard/John H Reid Poetry Contest.  This annual contest from American website Winning Writers is for poems of any length.
    Closing: 30.9.10.
    Prizes: $3,000, $1,000, $400, $250.  In addition there will be six ‘Most Highly Commended’ awards of $100 each.  The ten winning entries will be published on the website.
    Entry Fee: $7 for every 25 lines submitted.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Hi Michael,
     Thanks for a very useful website. Since finding the contact details on your site, I've won the Txtlit competition twice, and the Write Invite competition four times. With the prize money I'm now entering other competitions. Thanks for keeping us writers posted!
     Best regards, Uta Coutts

Pennine Ink Poetry Competition.  This freebie from Burnley is for UK poets only.  Entries should be limited to 30 lines, any style or subject.
    Closing: 7.10.10.
    Prize: £50.  The top three entries will be published in an anthology.
    Entry Fee: None - free to enter.
    Details: Email the co-ordinator, Laura Sheridan, at: sheridansdandl@yahoo.co.uk

Christchurch Writers’ Competition.  Christchurch used to consider itself quite posh when it was in the country of Hampshire, then it was shunted into yokel country - Dorset - and it never really got over the shock.  Still, the writers’ circle battled gamely on, and here is their latest contest.  It has four categories: Article (up to 800 words), Story (up to 2,500 words), Poem (up to 40 lines), One-Act Play (20 minutes duration).  What it doesn’t have, unfortunately, is a website.  Too common, I suppose.
    Closing: 8.10.10.
    Prizes: Article, story, poem - £50 in each category.  Play - £100.
    Entry Fee: £3.50.
    Details (send sae): Christchurch Writers’ Competition, The Regent Centre, 51 High Street, Christchurch, Dorset, BH23 1AS.

Indigo Dreams Press Annual Poetry Awards.  This is for poems in any style and on any theme with a length of no more than 36 lines.  When I visited the site on July 31 a virtual busker assailed my ears with guitar music which I tolerated only because I didn’t know where to find the mute button on my computer.  However, when this chap started singing - LOUDLY - I knew I had to do something.  So I clicked on the little ‘x’ in the top right-hand corner of the browser.  For this reason I can’t tell you who is judging the contest, and I may have missed important rules such as open only to transvestites (unlikely, but you never know).
    Closing: 15.10.10.
    Prizes: £125, £50, £25.
    Entry Fee: £3 each, £10 for four.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Dorothy Sargent Rosenburg Annual Poetry Competition .  This American contest, which is open all to writers under 40, is for lyric poems celebrating the human spirit.  Don’t overdo the celebrations however, because brevity is mentioned as an asset.  If you submit the maximum of three poems, only one can be over 30 lines.
    Closing: 15.10.10.
    Prizes: Varying from $1,000 up to as much as $25,000 (expect the former in these hard times).
    Entry Fee: None for entrants outside the United States, as it’s too much hassle dealing with international payments from bankrupt countries.  If you live in the U.S., bad luck - the fee is ten dollars (if you find yourself short of cash you could given them your house and pay the rest in instalments).
    Comp Page: Click Here.

The Earth Vision Nature Writing Contest 2010.  This US competition is held ‘to support the cause of writing on the subject of nature and deep ecology’.  It is for fiction, creative non-fiction, poetic prose or poetry with some element of nature woven into it.
    Closing: 15.10.10.
    Prizes: 1st - $500.  2nd - $10.  3rd - $100.  Honourable Mentions (2) - An honourable mention.
    Entry Fee: $12.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Troubadour International Poetry Prize.  This annual contest from Coffee House Poetry is for poems of up to 45 lines which fit on to one A4 page.
    Closing: 15.10.10.
    Prizes: £1,000, £500, £250.  Runners-up (20) - £20.
    Entry Fee: £5 ($8) each, or £4 ($7) per poem for four or more.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

The Big Scribble Poetry Competition.  This one from The Big Issue in the North Trust is for poems of up to 40 lines on the theme of Home.  All money raised goes to support Big Issue vendors as they strive to improve their lives.
    Closing: 18.10.10.
    Prizes: 1st - Publication in The Big Issue in the North, with an interview.  You will also be featured on the website.  Other prizes to be announced.
    Entry Fee: A minimum donation of £3 is requested.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Poetry Society National Poetry Competition.  In 1983 Carol Ann Duffy won this contest, and 26 years later she became the Poet Lauriate.  So if you’re hoping to become an overnight sensation, this is probably not the ideal contest.  But there are compensations.  The top cash award is one of the best in the business, and the second prize isn’t bad either.  In addition, Carol Ann Duffy is not one of the judges.  The thing that makes me uneasy about this one is that the hardcopy entry form asks for your age and ethnic background.  They say this is for statistical purposes only, but I still don’t think it belongs on a competition entry form.  However, I have no complaints about the line limit which is 40.
    Closing: 31.10.10.
    Prizes: £5,000, £2,000, £1,000.  Runners-up (7) - £100.  Winners will be published on the website and in Poetry Review.
    Entry Fee: £6 for the first, £3 thereafter.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Leaf Books Tiny Weeny Writing & Drawing Competition.  The writing can be in any form - poem, story, playlet, tweet - but must not run to more than 140 characters including spaces and punctuation.  Now, wouldn’t it be clever if I’d used exactly 140 characters here?  Ah well, you can’t have everything.
    Closing: 31.10.10.
    Prize : £75 and a year’s subscription to the Leaf Writing Magazine.  Selected entries will be published in the mag.
    Entry Fee: £2 each, £10 for six.
    Comp Page: Click Here .

SaveAs Writers Prose and Poetry Competition.  This one from Canterbury Writers’ group SaveAs is for stories of up to 4,000 words and poems of up to 50 lines on any theme.  All entries (as opposed to just those shortlisted by sifters) will be seen by the judges.
    Closing: 31.10.10.
    Prizes (in each category): £35, £20, £10, plus trophies.
    Entry Fee: Stories - £3 each, £8 for three.  Poems - £2 each, £5 for three.
    Website: Click Here.

The Plough Prize.  Arr, it be that time again.  The Plough Prize, which if I’m not mistaken was formerly known as The Hayseeds Award, is back for its eighth annual appearance.  It comes from the Plough Arts Centre in Torrington, Devon.  There are three categories: Open Poem (up to 40 lines), Short Poem (up to 10 lines), and Poem for Children 5 to 11 years (no length restriction).
    Closing: 31.10.10.
    Prizes: Open Poem - £500, £200, £100.  Short Poem - £500, £200, £100.  Poem for Children - £100.  There is in addition a prize for a Devon poet - A specially engraved vase from Darlington Christal (to prove you come from Devon you have to drive a herd of sheep down a narrow country lane at such a slow pace that you cause a tailback of traffic at least four miles long).
    Entry Fee: £4 each, £14 for four.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Hi Michael
     I discovered your website last year and entered lots of comps - no prizes in 2008. This year I decided just to enter The Trowell and District Writers Trust competitions - again directed from your site and also in the hope of bettering my marks compared to my entries last year.
     I am delighted to say I went along to the Presentation yesterday and received 1st prize in the Open Poetry competition - a lovely certificate, a shield and some prize money.
     I thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon which had a "Stand and Deliver" poetry competition as well as a raffle, refreshments, sales of Members poetry, and time to chat and get to know people.
     The comps are great - all entries receive a mark and a short critique - I found all these helpful and encouraging. I feel I have new friends and a lovely day to look back on.
                                                                                -  Kate Brumby

Ragged Raven Poetry Competition.  This is the 13th of these annual contests from Ragged Raven Press of Stratford-upon-Avon.  As usual there is no line limit.  You can ramble on to your heart’s content, confident in the knowledge that a warm welcome awaits you from judges with nothing better to do than spend signifcant portions of their lives battling their way through the obscurities of your endlessly convoluted thought processes.  So you toil mightily, send in your entry and wait, tingling with anticipation.  Then a bell rings.  There’s someone at the door.  It’s a Ragged Raven judge with a shotgun.  Have you perhaps overdone it?
    Closing: 31.10.10.
    Prizes: 1st - £300.  Runners-up (4) - £50.  Winners will be published in an anthology.
    Entry Fee: £3 each, £10 for four.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Envoi International Poetry Competition.  This one, from the well-known though small magazine Envoi, is for poems up to 40 lines.
    Closing: 20th February, June and October each year.
    Prize: Poetry books to the value of £150, £100, £50.
    Entry Fee: £3.00 per poem or 5 for £12.00.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Unbound Press Poetry & Flash Fiction Competition.  Two categories here, with the same closing date and the same prizes.  The poetry should conclude at no more than 40 lines, while the flash fiction should stop flashing at 400 words.
    Closing: 31.10.10.
    Prizes (in each category): £30, £15.  Winners and runners-up will be published in the Unbound Press Journal and will receive a free copy.
    Entry Fee: £3.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Segora Poetry Competition.  Poems of up to 40 lines (in English) are required for this one from The International Writers Block based in France.  Roger Elkin, published poet, will be judging.
    Closing: 14.11.10.
    Prizes: £100, £30, £15.
    Entry Fee: £3.50 each, £6 for two, £8 for three, etc.
    Comp Page: Click Here .

Bedford Poetry Competition.  This is for poems of up to 50 lines on any subject.
    Closing: 14.11.10.
    Prize: £300.
    Entry Fee : £3.
    Details (send sae): Bedford Open Poetry Competition, 38 Verne Drive, Ampthill, Bedford, MK45 2PS.

The Poetry Business Book & Pamphlet Award.  For this regular contest you send a collection of poems of between 20 and 24 pages.  The judges will select up to four collections for publication in pamphlet form.  These first stage winners receive a share of the prize money and will have the option to submit an extended manuscript for possible publication in a book.  Note that if the judges decide no collection is worthy of publication, no winner will be chosen - but there is no mention of a refund of entry fees.  I don’t like this sort of thing.  It’s fair enough to withhold publication in these circumstances, but I see no justification for withholding the prize money.  After all, the entrants have paid for that.
    Closing: 29.11.10.
    Prizes: Publication, free copies and a share of the £2,000 prize fund.
    Entry Fee: £25.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Creative Writing for All Short Story & Poetry Competition.  This has two categories: Stories (up to 2,000 words) and Poems (up to 40 lines).  The theme is Domestic Violence.  All profits will be donated to Women’s Aid.
    Closing: 30.11.10.
    Prizes (in each category): £70, £35, £20.
    Entry Fee: £5 for the first, £3 thereafter.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Dear Michael

Just to let you know I’ve been entering writing competitions for several years and this year came second in the 19^th Feile Filiochta International Poetry Competition. Hurrah! I probably wouldn’t have heard about it but for your site (and I still don’t know how to say it). I don’t even consider it one of my better poems – but it was free to enter. It just goes to show that literary competition judges have to be very subjective in the end, so it’s worth carrying on even when you don’t feel that confident. Anyway, I’m off to spend my winnings of 500 euros (that’s very nearly £375 in real money). Keep up the good work!
     Here’s a link to the poem that won the prize
     All the best - Clare Kirwan

Café Writers Open Poetry Competition.  Café Writers is a Norfolk writing group which meets in a bar in Norwich and ought therefore to be called, in the interests of accuracy, Bar Writers.  However, I suppose this doesn’t quite have the same refined ring to it.  The contest is for poems of up to 40 lines.
    Closing: 30.11.10.
    Prizes: 1st - £1,000.  2nd - £300.   Runners-up (5) - £50.   Funniest Poem - £100.  Norfolk Prize (Norfolk residents only) - £100.
    Entry Fee: £4 each, £10 for three, £2 thereafter.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

The New Writer Prose & Poetry Prizes 2010 .  There are three categories in this annual contest: Fact (essays, articles, interviews - up to 4,000 words), Fiction (stories - up to 2,000 words; serials/novellas - up to 20,000 words) and Poetry (singles - up to 40 lines, collections - between 6 and 10 poems).
    Closing: 30.11.10.
    Prizes: Fact - £150, £100, £50.  Fiction: Short Stories - £300, £200, £100; Novella - £300.  Poetry Single - £100, £75, £50.  Poetry Collection - £300, £200, £100.
    Entry Fees: Fact - £5.  Fiction - £5 for short stories, £15 for Serials/Novellaa.  Poetry - £5 for two single poems, £12 for collections.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

The Mona Schreiber Prize.  This American contest is for humorous fiction and non-fiction running to no more than 750 words.  Comic essays, poetry, short stories, scripts and humorous shopping lists are all acceptable.
    Closing: 1.12.10.
    Prizes: $500, $250, $100.
    Entry Fee: $5.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Genomics Forum Poetry Competition.  If you have any ideas for poems about ‘improving the human’ then this contest from the Genomics Forum and the Scottish Poetry Library is just what you’ve been looking for.  You can submit one poem of no more than 50 lines on the subject, and it won’t cost you a penny.  Not much room for improvement there, eh?
    Closing: 7.12.10.
    Prizes: £500, £200, £100.
    Entry Fee: None - free to enter.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

The Prole Laureate Competition.  This one from Prole, a new print magazine that publishes high quality prose and poetry, is open worldwide and is for poems in any form and on any subject (also any length).
    Closing: 24.12.10.
    Prizes: 1st - £100 and publication in the mag.  Runners-up (2) - £30.
    Entry Fee : £3 for the first, £2 thereafter.
    Comp Page: Click Here.

Dear Michael,
     I just wanted to tell you that I won first prize in the Charnwood Arts' miniWords Poetry Competition (£250), so thank you very much for that!
                                                                               -  Mary Whitsell

Brit Writers’ Awards.  The first of these contests had its closing date extended, presumably because there hadn’t been enough entries.  Then the awards ceremony was moved to a later date because they’d had so many entries they couldn’t cope.  Thus the promoters learned that most people enter competitions on the last minute.  And so this time, to encourage you to send in your work early, they are closing the contest when they’ve received 20,000 entries (they had 21,000 last time - eventually).  I don’t like the uncertainty this has introduced.  It’s bad enough extending a closing date, but to bring one forward without warning is downright inconsiderate.  Imagine writing a novel specially and then finding, as you try to upload the file, that they’ve just stopped accepting entries.  Still, it has to be said that the contest, due to the publicity surrounding it, is a prestigious event despite the unprofessional attitude of the promoters, so let us turn, grudgingly, to the details.  The requirement is for short stories (1,000 - 5,000 words), novels, non-fiction, children’s stories, poems (collections of 5), songs, and stage/screen plays.  There is in addition a category for children, but the little darlings will be too busy squabbling over the latest video game to write anything, so I won’t give any details.  Finally, there’s a category for published writers.  Alas, published writers do not qualify for any cash, as it is assumed they will already have made a fortune from their work.  Ah, if only ...
    Closing: 25.2.11 (5pm) - or when 20,000 entries have been received.
    Prizes: Adult - £10,000.
    Entry Fee: £10.95 (you may submit as many entries as you wish for this one-off payment).
    Comp Page: Click Here.

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Notes: Unless otherwise stated in the rules, poetry should be single-spaced.  It is sometimes the case that your name shouldn’t appear on the manuscript. Check the rules.  If you put your name on there after being told not to, you’re out.  Don’t use coloured paper or fancy fonts.  The colour and pizzazz to make you stand out from the crowd should be in the words.  Plain white A4 80gsm paper is the stuff to use, with plain black typing or print.  My preferred font for poetry manuscripts printed on an inkjet or laser printer is Gill Sans in 12 point (13 if I’m not pressed for space).  This gives a clear, dark print that’s easy to read.  Although publishers and agents sometimes demand the feeble Courier font, which comes out on my printers like something produced by a typewriter with an antique ribbon, I’ve never known competition organisers to express any preference.  But as always, check the rules.  Finally, write on one side of the sheet only - unless asked to put your address, etc, on the back.
 

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Disclaimer

For other types of writing competitions, see the full list of literary contests on my Writing Comps page.