Felixstowe Festival is delighted to launch our 2016 short story competition! We’re looking for short stories of up to 1000 words inspired by the 2016 Festival theme – Gateways.
What is the first thing that springs to mind?
Maybe Felixstowe Port, a gateway
to Europe via the North Sea? The plight of refugees, negotiating treacherous
gateways to reach a better future? Or even the tax office – death and taxes
come to us all…
What about more individual
gateways, the doors people must push or break open to change their lives?
Gateways may be physical or
psychological, real or imagined. Fantastical or whimsical, or
other-worldly. No subject or genre is off-limits. Please interpret the
theme of ‘Gateways’ as creatively as you wish in your short story entry.
Dates:
The closing date is Friday 13th
May, 2016.
A longlist of 15 entries will be announced on 30th May, 2016.
A shortlist of 6 will be announced on 6th June, 2016.
The 3 winners will be announced on 20th June, 2016.
A longlist of 15 entries will be announced on 30th May, 2016.
A shortlist of 6 will be announced on 6th June, 2016.
The 3 winners will be announced on 20th June, 2016.
Word Count:
Maximum of 1000 words, no
minimum.
How to enter:
Please take or send 3 copies of
your story to Felixstowe Library, Crescent Rd, Felixstowe, Suffolk, IP11 7BY.
Your story should include a title
but no other personal information. Please supply ON A SEPARATE
SHEET: your name, email address (if available), contact telephone number, word
count and title of story.
Don’t forget to attach your £5
entry fee. Cheques are to be made payable to Felixstowe Book Festival.
Entries that do not meet these
requirements will be automatically disqualified.
If you have any questions, please
email ruth@ruthdugdall.com prior to submitting your entry,
using the subject line: SHORT STORY QUERY.
Prizes:
First Prize: £50 cash plus a 12 month
subscription to EADT Suffolk Magazine.
The winning story will also be
published by the magazine should the editor consider it suitable (you may want
to look at the magazine’s website to get an idea of the
type of things they publish).
Second Prize: £10 cash
Third Prize: £10 cash
The winner and the two runners up
will be invited to read their stories to an audience at the closing event of
the festival on Sunday June 26th. The winner and runners up will each receive
two free tickets to this event. It is hoped that in entering this competition
you are indicating your availability for this event.
Judges:
Ruth Dugdall: Ruth is an award winning
crime novelist, and has published five novels, four of which are set in Suffolk.
Her latest novel, Nowhere Girl is set in Luxembourg, from
where she has just returned. Ruth also contributes short stories to
Woman’s Weekly, and recently had a four part series published entitled ‘Mad
Dogs & Englishwomen’. She puts her success as an author down to writing
competitions, through which she gained an agent and a publishing deal.
Jeanette Hewitt: Jeanette has had two novels
published independently, Freedom First Peace Later in 2010 and Worlds
Apart, in 2013. Her third novel, which is her debut crime fiction, is due
for release in 2016. She has worked with Harper Collins’ website Authonomy
and The Front List and has also written for online fashion magazine, Offers
Boutique, and literary magazines, The Jimston Journal and Spike. Her
short story, ‘Ellen’s Journey’, won an award in the author vs. author
competition, supported by the National Literary Trust in 2008. In July 2012 she
was shortlisted as a finalist in the Marie Claire Inspire and Mentor Award,
chosen by Jojo Moyes. She is also a member of the Crime Writers Association.
Liz Ferretti: Liz won an Arts Council
Escalator Award for her novelSamphire Man, which will be submitted to
publishers later this year. In 2014, her fiction and creative non-fiction was
included in a major exhibition of painting, sculpture and writing on the
Suffolk Coast. She is a professional writer and journalist, specialising
in landscape, heritage and coastal management, writing for EADT Suffolk
Magazine and national specialist media. She also writes stories, adapted
classics and a magazine for students of English as a Foreign
Language. Keen to encourage everyone to take up creative writing, she ran
short story competitions for EADT Suffolk Magazine in 2014 and 2015. As part of
the Windling Collective, she co-led creative writing workshops at Folk East in
2015, and will be there again in August 2016.
Terms and Conditions:
1. The competition is open to
anyone aged eighteen or over.
2. All entries must be original unpublished prose of no more than 1000 words.
3. Publication of the winning entry in Suffolk Magazine is at the editor’s discretion and is conditional on the material being suitable in terms of taste, subject matter and style.
5. Winners will be notified by 20/06/2016 by the email address, telephone number or home address given with their entry. (If you have not been notified by this date, your story has not been selected on this occasion).
6. By submitting their stories, all entrants thereby grant Suffolk Magazine and Felixstowe Book Festival website the right to publish their entry in the event of their work winning the competition.
7. We would like all winners to be available to attend the reading of their work at The Orwell Hotel in Felixstowe on the evening of Sunday 26th June 2016.
8. The decision of the competition judges will be final and no correspondence will be entered into
2. All entries must be original unpublished prose of no more than 1000 words.
3. Publication of the winning entry in Suffolk Magazine is at the editor’s discretion and is conditional on the material being suitable in terms of taste, subject matter and style.
5. Winners will be notified by 20/06/2016 by the email address, telephone number or home address given with their entry. (If you have not been notified by this date, your story has not been selected on this occasion).
6. By submitting their stories, all entrants thereby grant Suffolk Magazine and Felixstowe Book Festival website the right to publish their entry in the event of their work winning the competition.
7. We would like all winners to be available to attend the reading of their work at The Orwell Hotel in Felixstowe on the evening of Sunday 26th June 2016.
8. The decision of the competition judges will be final and no correspondence will be entered into
