WRITERS’ NEWS
102 MARCH 2020 http://www.writers-online.co.ukThe next round
of the Bath Flash
Fiction Award,
which has a first
prize of £1,000
and runner-up
prizes of £300 and
£100 plus two £30
commendations,
closes on 16 Feb.
Enter short fiction
up to 300 words.
The entry fee is
£9 for one and
£15 for two.
Website: https://
bathflash
fictionaward.com/The Financial
Times has won
News Provider of
the Year Award
for the second
year in a row
at the Press
Gazette British
Journalism
Awards. The
Guardian’s Simon
Hattenstone
and Daniel
Lavelle won
Best Features
Journalism
for their series
of articles on
the deaths of
homeless people.Hilary Mantel’s
2009 novel Wolf
Hall has been
voted the UK’s
historical novel
of all time in a
public poll run by
the Walter Scott
Prize. The third
book in her Tudor
trilogy, The Mirror
and the Light, will
be published in
March.‘The most helpful
quality a writer
can cultivate is
self-confi dence- arrogance, if
you can manage
it. You write to
impose yourself
on the world,
and you have
to believe in
your own ability
when the world
shows no sign
of agreeing with
you.’
Hilary Mantel
FLASHES
The editorial team at Contemporary Verse 2: The
Canadian Journal of Poetry and Critical Writing (CV2)
have a vision, ‘to get as many readers as possible to try
poetry and like it. It is a mission we take very seriously.’
The team aim to do this by publishing ‘an exciting range
of interviews, essays, articles
and reviews together with new
poetic writing to create a lively
discussion on the art of poetry,
the poets’.
This Canadian quarterly is
catholic in tastes and ‘respected
for its openness to a diverse
range of poets and poetic
styles. From fresh to familiar
and from traditional lyric to
extreme language wrangling—
we’re not afraid to take it on.’Submissions are open from 1 September to 31 May
each year, with strict guidelines. Read them and the
back issues to make sure your submission is right for this
journal.
Submit: up to six pages of poetry; interviews, 6-8
pages; articles, 3-4 pages; essays, 2-4 pages; reviews, 600-
1,000 words. Submit online as a single attachment of a
doc, txt or rtf file.
Simultaneous submissions are permitted, with the
usual proviso, multiple subs and reprints are not. If work
is intended for a themed issue indicate that in the cover
letter.
Response time is ‘2 to 6 months.’ Payment is Can$30
per poem, $50-$100 for interviews and articles, $40-
$150 for essays, $50-$80 for reviews, for first North
American serial print rights and limited, non-exclusive
digital rights only.
Website: http://www.contemporaryverse2.caCritical timing
GLOBAL POETRY MARKET
PDR Lindsay-SalmonWin big with
BBC NSSA 2020
The BBC National Short Story Award
2020 with Cambridge University has a first
prize of £15,000 for a single short story.
Entries are accepted until 9 March. To be
eligible to enter, authors must have a prior
record of print publication in the UK.
The award is one of the most prestigious
for a single short story. The winner will
receive £15,000 and each shortlisted writer
will receive £600. The winning stories will
be published in an anthology and broadcast
on BBC Radio 4. This year’s judging panel,
which includes Lucy Caldwell (pictured),
who was shortlisted in the prize last
year, Irenosen Okijie, Chris Power and
Di Spiers, will be chaired by author and
journalist Jonathan Freedland.
‘It’s a great honour to be asked to chair the judges for this year’s BBC
National Short Story Award,’ said Jonathan. ‘It’s a form that allows for
narratives of great economy and, with that, particular intensity. As Roald
Dahl, whose stories I lapped up as a teenager, proved, a good short story can
linger in the mind long after countless voluminous novels have been forgotten.
It’s the three-minute pop song of literature – a discipline that seems easy but
requires complete mastery of the craft. I’m very much looking forward to
seeing what today’s writers have on their minds – and what they have to tell us
about the way we live now.’
Enter original short stories up to 8,000 words. Stories should be either
unpublished or scheduled for publication on or after 1 January 2019.
Entry is free. Writers may enter one story only.
The closing date is 9 March.
Website: https://writ.rs/bbcnssa2020- The BBC Young Writers Award with First Story and Cambridge University
is open for entry by writers aged 13 to 18 and will close on 23 March. The
chair of judges is broadcaster Kate Thistleton.
Poetry news
from Newcastle
Win a £1,000 first prize plus a week-
long poetry residency in the 2020
Newcastle Poetry Competition.
The international poetry
competition is for original,
unpublished poems up to forty lines.
The competition will be judged
by Colette Bryce, a poet who had
been editor of Poetry London and
this year takes up the position of
editor of Poetry Ireland Review.
The winners will be announced
at the Newcastle Poetry Festival,
which takes place between 13 and
16 May.
The first prize is £1,000 and
a week-long residency in the
Contemporary Poetry Archives at
Newcastle University during the
Poetry Festival.
The second prize is £500, and
the third prize is £250. Five highly
commended prizes of £25 will also
be awarded.
Entry is £6 for the first poem
and £4 for any poems thereafter.
The closing date is 3 March.
Website: http://www.ncl.ac.uk