Upcoming Competitions - Feb & March

Following are the details of some upcoming competitions which might be of interest to our members. Put these dates in the dairy and let’s see how we do! Check out the links for more info.

Manchester Writing for Children Prize

Deadline for entries: Friday 28th February 2014
Entry fee: £12

3 - 5 poems which should total no more than 120 lines, for children aged 5 – 12.

Prizes:

1^st prize: £2000

Runners up: Published in an anthology.

More info: http://www.manchesterwritingcompetition.co.uk/mwcp/index.php

What a great way to practice the skills we learned in the Writing for Young People session!

Templar Pamphlet Award

Deadline for entries: Monday 3rd March 2014
Entry fee: £11 online, £10 by post

Poems covering 10 - 12 pages of A4 which should total no more than 500 lines.

Prize: Pamphlet publication

More info: http://templarpoetry.com/collections/awards

Brittle Star Poetry & Short Fiction Competition

Deadline for entries: Wednesday 12th March 2014
Entry fee: £4 for 1st entry then £3 subsequent entries

Poetry of 60 lines or less and short stories of 2000 words or less.

Prizes (separately for poetry & fiction):

First Prizes: £250
Second Prizes: £100
Third Prizes: £50

More info: http://www.brittlestar.org.uk/competition

 

 

 

Cardiff International Poetry Competition

Deadline for entries: Friday 14th March 2014
Entry fee: £7 per poem

Poems of 50 lines or less.

Prizes:

First prize: £5000

Second Prize: £500

Third Prize: £250

Runners up: £50

 

More info: http://www.literaturewales.org/cipc

 

 

Cinnamon Press Pamphlet Competition

 

Deadline for entries: Monday 31st March 2014
Entry fee: £10

 

15 – 25 poems of up to 50 lines each.

 

Prize: £150 + publishing contract

 

More info: http://www.cinnamonpress.com/competitions/poetry-pamphlet-prizes

More competitions and resources here: http://www.poetrylibrary.org.uk/competitions

Writing for Young People Character Profile

In our February session, we put together a profile of a young person who could be central to a story for a young audience. Here are the questions to answer to create your own character. This information will all provide a background to your story.

1. Name
2. Age
3. Place of Birth
4. Where did your character grow up?
5. What schooling did your character have?
6. Who are/were your character’s parents (or guardians etc)?
7. Does s/he have any siblings or family life?
8. Does your character have a job?
9. What physical characteristic would someone notice? (e.g. long legs/red hair)
10. Does your character have a special friend?
11. What kind of music does s/he like?
12. Does your character have any special powers?
13. What is/was your character’s nickname at school?
14. Do they have any hobbies?
15. What job would they like to do?
16. Would they want to go to university/college?
17. What is their favourite food/drink?
18. What is the best thing they have done so far?
19. What is the worst thing they have done so far?
20. Does your character have a disability? (e.g. stuttering, physical disability)
21. Who is your character’s closest grown-up friend?
22. Does your character have any irritating habits? (e.g. picking their nose, rubbing their hands together)
23. What is their favourite word/expression?
24. What is their goal in life?
25. Is there anything else that will make up the character?

February 8th Meeting & February Writing Task

Saturday 8^th February saw our session fall on National Libraries Day. Some of our members attended Wolverhampton Central Library for a talk on the importance of libraries to a writer, before heading off to our February workshop, on Writing for Young People.

Kuli and Nirmal took us through their presentation which covered different techniques for writing for young people, and how it differs to writing for adults. We had some discussions about books we’d enjoyed as young people (not THAT long ago!) and tried to remember what we were like back then. We realised that young people act in specific ways and have specific experiences, and this means you have to tailor your writing towards them using dialogue and situations they relate to.

For example, teenagers are self-absorbent and have relatively little perspective on the world and how their experiences fit into it as a whole. Therefore, they are prone to exaggeration and drama. To appeal to this audience with your writing, you have to ensure you capture this in the characters, dialogue and plot.

We then compiled a character profile for a young person who could be central to a story (read the full brief here), and started to build a plot for them. This is used as the basis for this month’s writing task, which is to write a story for young people. You can write a short story based on your character, or aim for a longer story (30 – 40,000 words) and bring us an excerpt next month.

There are some competitions coming up which might be of interest to writers, including the Manchester Writing for Children Prize, which would make use of the techniques we learned on Saturday. See a full list here on the Poetry Library website.

We welcomed two new members in February, as well as a returning member, Eileen. It’s great to see the group expanding, bringing new talent to the table. Hopefully we’ll see you again next month, girls J

Don’t forget you can come along to our March session on Saturday 8^th March for a workshop on Inspiration & Ideas.