Category Archives: News

Writing prompt – purse

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Mermaid's Purse_Photo by

This black pillowy scrap was lying on the ground in a boatyard, possibly dropped by a gull after being scooped from the nearby rocky beach. These scorched-looking ravioli are known colloquially as mermaid’s purses, which is an interesting idea. Why would a mermaid adorned with peals and shells carry such a dull little bag?

Besides, the truth is even weirder, when you think about it. These are actually egg cases for sea creatures such as rays, skates and sharks. The one I saw looks like it might once have cradled the eggs of a spotted ray.

Imagine the teeny sea creature emerging from this leathery bag!

I love that myths and marine biology have been woven together in this way, making nature even more enticing by creating a narrative. Could you turn this into a story that encourages wonder and respect?

If you write or create something prompted by this idea, please let me know by emailing judydarley (at) iCloud.com. I’d love to know the creative direction you choose.

Enter National Flash Fiction Day’s microfiction competition

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Sweets by Judy DarleyNational Flash Fiction Day’s 100-word microfiction competition invites your submissions. Send something funny, something that resonates, is fresh and exciting, and leaves the judges lost for words.

The deadline is 15th February 2024. You’re invited to submit up to three flash fictions on any theme at no more than 100 words each. Titles aren’t included in the word count.

Last year’s winning micro was ‘All my lovers’ by Sara Siddiqui Chansarkar. Read it and the other winning tales here.

In 2022, Jan Kaneen won with her beautiful mini-tale ‘Just a Word to the Snowblind.’ Read it and the other winners here.

The microfiction competition prizes are:

  • £150 for first place
  • £100 for second place
  • £50 for third place

There are also seven awards of £20 for highly commended pieces. The winning and highly commended authors will be published in the National Flash Fiction Day 2024 anthology, and will receive a free print copy of this anthology.

This year’s judges are Sara Chansarkar, Jan Kaneen, David Rhymes and Alison Wassell.

Read more about the judges here.

By submitting work to the NFFD Microfiction Competition, you are agreeing to publication online and in the 2024 NFFD Anthology if your work is selected as a prizewinner or highly commended flash.

The submission fees for this year’s anthology is:

  • £2.00 for one (1) entry.
  • £3.75 for two (2) entries.
  • £5.25 for three (3) entries.

Find full details here, including details of the free entry scheme.

This year, National Flash Fiction Day is on Saturday 15th June. How will you celebrate?

Got an event, challenge, competition or call for submissions you’d like to draw attention to? Send me an email at JudyDarley (@) iCloud (dot) com.

Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook Short Story Competition

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Kalamazoo railway tracks by Judy DarleyWriters’ & Artists’ Yearbook Short Story Competition invites stories on the theme of ‘risk.’

Your entry must be no more than 2,000 words long.

The deadline for entries is midnight on 12th February 2024.

The winner of the competition – along with two runners-up – will be announced on the W&A blog pages in March 2023.

Entry is free, but don’t forget to register (also free) with the website www.writersandartists.co.uk before submitting your story.

This year’s judge is Kirsty Logan, the author of three novels, three story collections, a memoir, two chapbooks, a 10-hour audio play for Audible, and several collaborative projects with musicians and visual artists. Her books have won the Lambda, Polari, Saboteur, Scott and Gavin Wallace awards. Her work has been optioned for TV, adapted for stage, recorded for radio and podcasts, exhibited in galleries and distributed from a vintage Wurlitzer cigarette machine. She lives in Glasgow with her wife, baby and rescue dog.

Prizes of this writing contest

Find full details and competition rules at www.writersandartists.co.uk

Got an event, challenge, competition or call for submissions you’d like to draw attention to? Send me an email at JudyDarley (@) iCloud (dot) com.

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Writing prompt – blush

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Pink hat and flowers_Photo by Judy Darley

This pink hat hanging from a flowering bush caught my eye partly because of the vivid colour and partly because this fluffy hat and the blush-pink blooms really oughtn’t be seen at the same time. Surely these flowers shouldn’t appear until springtime, and certainly not when it’s cold enough to warrant wearing a woolly hat.

Can you write a story that makes sense of this odd pairing and what it tells us about climate breakdown? What happened to the person who wore that hat? What could they, and your readers, do to help slow or even reverse climate breakdown?

If you write or create something prompted by this idea, please let me know by emailing judydarley (at) iCloud.com. I’d love to know the creative direction you choose.

Enter the Lucy Cavendish College Fiction Prize 2023

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Bud. Photo by Judy DarleyThe Lucy Cavendish College Fiction Prize 2024 invites entries from women over the age of 18 who have written a novel “that marries literary merit with unputdownability.”

Founded in 2010, by Professor Janet Todd OBE, the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize has seen many shortlisted and winning authors attaining literary success including securing publishing deals.

Sarah Harman won the 2023 Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize with ‘All The Other Mothers Hate Me‘.

The 2022 winner of the Fiction Prize was Hannah Stapleton with her novel ‘Blue Tears’.

  • The deadline to submit as a low-income writer is 12 noon on Wednesday 7th February 2024
  • Deadline to submit a paid entry is 12 noon on Friday 9th February 2024.

The judges say they’re open to literary fiction and genre fiction, as well as to young adult fiction and children, providing they are primarily word-based.

Your submission must be previously unpublished, and you must not have had other full-length novels published. However, having short stories, poetry, non-fiction or picture books published previously does not exclude you.

To be considered, you need to submit the first 40 to 50 pages of the novel via the online form and a three to five-page synopsis of the remainder. You must not have agent representation at the time of submission.

If you accept agent representation after your submission and before the judging is complete, you will no longer be eligible to take part in the competition and your entry will be discounted.

The entry fee is £12. Sponsored entries for low income writers are available – simply tick the appropriate box on the entry form. You will need to provide proof of financial eligibility such as Jobseeker’s Allowance, Disability Benefit, Income Support, Working Tax Credit, proof of being a full-time student, Housing Benefit or proof of being a full-time carer.

This year’s winner bags £1,500.00.

All shortlisted entrants will receive one-to-one consultation with an agent at Peter Fraser + Dunlop (subject to them not having an existing agent) who will offer editorial feedback as well as valuable publishing advice.

For full details, visit www.lucy.cam.ac.uk/fictionprizewww.fictionprize.co.uk, and make sure you follow the competition Terms and Conditions.

Got an event, challenge, competition or call for submissions you’d like to draw attention to? Send me an email at JudyDarley (@) iCloud (dot) com.

The Fiction Desk seeks ghost stories

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Arnoa Vale Cemetery cr Judy DarleyGot a spooky tale to share? In these early days of the year with so many hours to each dark night, The Fiction Desk invites you to seek a home for your spooky scribblings by submitting an entry to their annual call for ghost stories of 1,000 to 10,000 words.

The deadline for entries is 31st January 2024.

The editors encourage you to have a play to discover your own definition of ‘ghost story.’

They say: “It can mean a lot of different things, from an encounter with an actual phantom in the style of classic ghost stories, to more unusual supernatural phenomena and unexplained events. All types of story are welcome, so feel free to experiment: if you stray too far from the supernatural, we’ll still read it as a general submission. Keep in mind that our readership (and by extension our editor) may be more likely to respond well to psychological chills and unexplained mysteries than in-your-face gore.”

They pay £25 per thousand words for stories they publish (eg £100 for a 4,000 word story, or £150 for a 6,000 word story). Contributors also receive two complimentary paperback copies. The stories they publish are also eligible to enter the Writer’s Award, a cash prize of £100 for the best story in each volume, as judged by the contributors.

Rules of this call for submissions

Entries should be between 1,000 and 10,000 words in length. Most of the stories they publish are between about 2,000 and 7,000 words.

To cover admin costs, submission fees are £4 per story. Stories should be submitted online.

You might find it helpful to take a look at their previous ghost story anthologies.

Find full details of how to submit your ghost stories here.

Got an event, challenge, competition, new venture or call for submissions you’d like to draw my attention to? Send me an email at judydarley (at) iCloud (dot) com.

Enter the Fractured Lit Ghost, Fable and Fractured Fairy Tales prize

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The Fractured Lit team urges you to dig into the darkest recesses of your imagination to write stories of ghosts, fables, and fractured fairy tales in 1,000 words or fewer.

The deadline is 4th February 2024.

Guest Judge Aimee Bender will choose three prize winners from a shortlist. The winner of this prize will receive $3,000 and publication, while the 2nd and 3rd place winners will receive publication plus $300 and $200, respectively. All entries will be considered for publication.

They say: “Whichever tradition you choose, make sure you find a new way to approach it, to twist and discombobulate it, so it pushes us away from the mundane and into the strange or uncanny. Transport us from the here and now to a new land of discovery, a fresh way of being entertained that embraces all of the ways we show our humanness.”

A $20 reading fee allows you up to two stories of 1,000 words or fewer each per entry.

Aimee Bender is the author of six books: The Girl in the Flammable Skirt (1998), which was an NY Times Notable Book; An Invisible Sign of My Own (2000), which was an LA Times pick of the year; Willful Creatures (2005), which was nominated by The Believer as one of the best books of the year; The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake (2010), which won the SCIBA award for best fiction, and an Alex Award; The Color Master (2013), a NY Times Notable Book for the year; and her latest novel, The Butterfly Lampshade (July 2020), which was longlisted for the PEN/Jean Stein Award. Her books have been translated into sixteen languages. Her short fiction has been published in Granta, GQ, Harper’s, Tin House, McSweeney’s, The Paris Review, and more, as well as heard on PRI’s “This American Life” and “Selected Shorts.”

Find full details of how to enter here: https://fracturedlit.com/fractured-lit-ghost-fable-and-fractured-fairy-tales-prize/ 

Got an event, challenge, competition or call for submissions you’d like to draw attention to? Send an email to judydarley (at) iCloud (dot) com.

Writing prompt – rig

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Oil rig at Clevedon Marine Lake. Photo by Judy Darley. Taken on New Year's Day 2024. Stormy skies above and swimmer just visible in foreground.As countless swimmers and spectators gathered at Clevedon Marine Lake on New Year’s Dave for the annual Big Dip, a vast structure drifted by. Like an industrial version of a child’s sandcastle, an oil rig floated past the morning’s revelries like a sea creature roused to curiosity by the shrieks. You can just see an uncommonly serene swimmer inside the pool’s perimeter.

These structures drill the seabed for the petroleum and gas that fuel our modern lives, and once decommissioned need to be dismantled, or become an art installation like Weston Super Mare’s See Monster.

What will be the fate of this one? Thousands of these edifices stand in seas around the globe. Can you devise a story or art work touching on the outcome for one? Could it be transformed into something beautiful that aids rather than harms marine life?

If you write or create something prompted by this idea, please let me know by emailing judydarley (at) iCloud.com. I’d love to know the creative direction you choose.

Merry everything

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Star lights cr Judy Darley

I hope you are lucky enough to have those you love close by, and all the frivolity or serenity you crave throughout this joyful season, however you choose to spend it.

May your festive tangles bring you light, sparkle and laughter.

I wish you a creative, fulfilling and hopeful 2024.

Enter The Masters Review chapbook contest

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Arnos Vale in the morning frost_by Judy Darley
The Masters Review is inviting submissions to their chapbook contest for emerging writers.

The deadline for entries is 17th December 2023 at midnight PT.

The winning writer will receive $3,000, digital and print manuscript publication, and 75 contributor copies.

Michael Martone, author of almost 30 books and chapbooks, will choose this year’s winner.

Michael  says: “I have always loved chapbooks. The first two books I published were chapbooks. What excites me is when a chapbook takes itself seriously as a literary form –up to something unique and different from other ‘packaging,’ other narrative or lyrical delivery devices — the novel, the short story collection, the novella, etc. (…) I love when a chapbook presents itself on an equal footing as those other forms. Not lesser or better but different, special. Its content is unable to be expressed in any other manner but this compact, shaped-charge of a book.”

Last year’s winner, Coats by Naomi Telushkin, selected by Kim Fu, will be published next spring.

The Masters Review say: “We’re interested in collections of flash fiction, creative nonfiction essays, short stories, and anything in-between. We encourage you to be bold, to experiment with style and form, as long as you stay under 45 pages.”

Find full details here: mastersreview.com/chapbook-contest/ 

Got an event, challenge, competition, new venture or call for submissions you’d like to draw my attention to? Send me an email at judydarley (at) iCloud (dot) com.