Competitions
MMU Competitions
Other Competitions
All Write! 2012 Competition – closing date Monday June 4th 2012
Free and open to: 9-12 year olds (Years 5,6,7)
The Manchester Children’s Book Festival invites young writers to send in their creative writing for this free-to-enter competition. There is no set theme and pupils are encouraged to write in any genre. If you are a secondary school running a transition project with feeder primaries let us know – we welcome group entries and are happy to publish work produced by other projects.
The best entries will be illustrated and published in All Write 2012 and copies of the anthology will be presented to winning pupils at a Manchester Literature Festival event in October.
Please submit entries by email if possible but we do accept postal entries, too.
All entries must be also include the following information:
- Name (or list of names or group title)
- The Title of your piece
- School year at time of writing
- The name of your school (and town/area) – if a transition project please give all school names
- The name of your teacher (or parent if sending in the work yourself)
- Your email contact (if possible, otherwise please give a telephone number)
- Contacts details for your teacher or parent (email if possible)
- To submit by email: Email allwrite@mmu.ac.uk, including all the details requested above and with the subject heading “Competition2012?
- To submit by post : send a copy of your work remembering to include all the information and contact details listed above to:
All Write competition
Manchester Children’s Book Festival
Manchester Metropolitan University
Room 123, Geoffrey Manton building
Rosamond Street West
Manchester M15 6LL
Click 4641_A3 All Write Poster_2012_v4 for All Write Poster. If you are a school wishing to publicise the competition please email allwrite@mmu.ac.uk and we will send out printed materials.
Portico Young Writers’ Prize – closing date for Nominations 14th May 2012
An opportunity for young writers aged between 14-18 to become Young Portico Laureates. Nominees should have already shown some talent for writing and be genuinely interested in developing this.
Expressions of interest by Tuesday 8th May 2012 and
Nominations by Monday 14th May.
Click here for more information
Contact: youngprize@theportico.org.uk or tel +44(0)161 236 678
The Manchester Poetry Prize 2012
The Manchester Writing School at MMU is launching the third Manchester Poetry on Prize – a major international literary competition celebrating excellence in creative writing.
The Manchester Poetry Prize is open internationally and will award a cash prize of £10,000 to the writer of the best poems submitted.
For further details, click
here.
Junior & Schools Writing Competition – Health, Wealth, Happiness – closing date 22nd June 2012
The Well Warrington Network helps people with chronic illnesses in Warrington. We do our best to make people feel better with the work that we do. We would ideally like Health, Wealth and Happiness for everyone that we help, which is why we want you to write about being Healthy, Wealthy or Happy. What makes you happy? Would you like to be very, very rich? What makes you healthy? Write a story or poem on 1 side of A4 about one or all of them.
Judged by Helen Thomas, Performance Poet.
Prize £20 for winning entry.
Runner up prizes – certificates, copies of “We Are Poets” book, poetry CDs “Everyone Everywhere Stomp Your Feet” by judge Helen Thomas.
Click
here for more details.
Manchester Cathedral International Poetry Competition – Closing Date: Friday June 29th 2012
- 1st Prize £450, for ‘The Manchester Cathedral Poet of the Year, 2012.’
- 2nd Prize £250
- 3rd Prize £150
The poems submitted should be ‘broadly religious,’ that is, ‘spiritual’ in nature and, like all good religious poetry, appeal to those who would not necessarily describe themselves as such. ‘Religious’ thus includes poems that are Christian, as well as those from within other
faith traditions. Those struggling to discover their own sense of the sacred are also invited to
submit entries. Poems up to 40 lines are welcome in any style or form and will be judged solely on their
merits as poetry.
Our Judge in 2012 is Suzanne Batty. Suzanne’s poetry collection The Barking Thing is published by Bloodaxe Books. Her poems and short stories are widely anthologised. She teaches Creative Writing at Sheffield Hallam University. Suzanne also leads writing workshops for people experiencing and recovering from mental distress.
ENTRY FEE: £4.50 for the first poem & £2 each for others.
Further info from: Rachel Mann – rachelmann@hotmail.co.uk
Mother Tongue, Other Tongue – closing date Monday 28th May 2012
Mother Tongue / Other Tongue is open to all mainstream and supplementary secondary schools in the North West and pupils can enter as individuals or groups of any size. It is, in effect, two separate competitions.
- Mother Tongue
Entries for this category will be in two parts:
- The first part is the poem, song or lullaby. This can be an original, creative piece, written in any language at all (except English).
It can also be a poem or song that is ‘remembered’ – i.e. something in your Mother Tongue that you recall, or that has been told to you by a relative.
- The second part of the entry will be a short written explanation of the first part. This will be either a translation, or an account of why the entrant has chosen to share this piece i.e. why it is important to them or the person who told it to them.
This part of the entry must be written in English but pupils can be helped to scribe or edit this by teachers, parents, carers or by friends. We welcome jointly-written entries.)
-
Other Tongue
Entries for this category will be a single, original poem, written in a language that is being studied in school and is not the first language spoken by the entrant.
This must be an original piece of work, giving pupils the opportunity to be creative with their Other Tongue.
Allowed languages in this category are: Spanish, French, German, Italian, Urdu, Mandarin or Arabic.
Click here for more information.
Wirral Festival of Firsts Open Poetry Competition 2012 – closing date: Friday 1st June 2012
This is our second year and we have expanded the competition to THREE categories with more opportunities to win prizes. Our three distinguished judges (Jan Dean, Andrew Rudd and Colin Watts) are all based in the Northwest.
Watch out for announcements about the Festival of Firsts Poetry Performance programme which Dave Costello will be announcing shortly!
- Open Poetry Competition
A poem on any subject, no more than 40 lines.
First Prize: £100. Two runners up: £50 each
- Humorous Poetry Competition
A humorous or comic poem, no more than 40 lines.
First Prize: £100. Two runners up: £50 each
- Under 16′s Poetry Competition
A poem on any subject, no more than 40 lines,
by anyone aged 16 years or under, on 31 August 2011.
First Prize: £50 in book vouchers.
Four runners up: £25 in book vouchers each.
Submission guidelines
- Please type poems on 1 side of A4 paper,1 poem per page.
- Please send a separate sheet listing your contact details and the title(s) of your poem(s).
- No on-line or email entries possible.
- Remember to include your entry fee: £3 per poem, £5 for two poems (free for under 16′s).
- Make cheques or Postal Orders payable to “Festival of Firsts”.
- Post all entries to: FOF Poetry, 71 Alderley Road, Hoylake, CH47 2AU
Please check our website for all the competition rules and more information about the Festival of Firsts 2012.
John Betjeman Poetry Competition for Young Poets – closing date 31st July 2012
We are now in our 6th year of holding our annual competition where we invite children aged aged between 10 and 13 to write a poem about their favourite place. The winner is then announced a special tea party at London, St. Pancras station in October and is given £500 with a further £500 going to the English department of his/her school. There are other prizes too including a visit to the School who generates the most entries by a published poet, for a poetry workshop.
There is a website for you to visit, which is
here
Marple International Writing Competition – closing date 2nd september 2012
Is pleased to announce that this year it is running an Open Poetry competition , ending on the 2nd of September 2012
Overseas entries are already being received, and UK entry forms can be obtained by writing to :-
Marple Writing Competition, PO Box 143, Marple (LDO), Stockport, SK6 9AD, and send a SAE,
or by downloading an application from its website
Our writing competitions were started to encourage all writers, but in particular new writers – and this poetry competition is somewhat unique, because in addition to 3 main cash prizes, there is a special prize for the winner of the best collection of poems—minimum 7 entries, who will have a booklet of up to 40 of their poems professionally produced.
Last years winner in this category was Rosie Garland, and her compilation “Those who wait” is both a powerful and moving selection of poems.
Entry fees are :
- 1 entry – £3.75
- 3 entries – £8
- 7 entries – £14
Total prize fund is £175.
The judge is prize winning author and poet Joyce Reed G.N.S.M.
The short Story competition – closing date 15th Septemper 2012
New or established writers. Stories will be published on the website.
First Prize £300.
Word limit : 1,000-5,000 words
Click
here for more details