Fish Short Story competition now open

Summary Short Story Competition 2013/14

OPEN
Judge: Claire Kilroy
Closes: 30 November 2013
Results: 17 March 2014
Anthology published: July 2014
Max length: 5,000 words

Desmond O'Grady Poetry Competition 2013

Desmond O'Grady Poetry Competition 2013

Deadline: 31st October 2013

Open to poets around the world.

Fred Johnston will judge the entries.

Entries must be previously unpublished and in English or Irish.
Entry Fees: €3 per poem, or €8 for three poems.
Prizes: First: €1,000 - Second: €300 - Third: €100

A longlist of poems will be selected (45 in total) and the poets will be invited to read the poems at the White House Limerick Poetry Open Mic in November and December.

Troubadour International Poetry Prize

Troubadour International Poetry Prize

Judges: Deryn Rees-Jones & George Szirtes.

Closing: 21st October 2013

The first prize is £2,500, 2nd is £500 and 3rd is £250. There will also be 20 prizes (£20 each). All winners will receive a spring 2014 coffee-house-poetry season-ticket and a coffee-house poetry reading with Deryn Rees-Jones and George Szirtes.

They will accept poems of no more than 45 lines each. Open to writers over 18 around the world.

Entry Fees: £5 per poem

Over The Edge Fiction Slam tonight

THIS FRIDAY

Mary Costello Featured Reader & Judge at Fifth Annual Over The Edge Fiction Slam

After the event’s huge success in the past four years, Over The Edge presents its fifth annual fiction slam with Featured Reader, Mary Costello, at The Kitchen @ The Museum, Spanish Arch, Galway on Friday, October 11^th, 8pm.

Mary Costello is originally from East Galway and now lives in Dublin. Her stories have been widely anthologised and published in New Irish Writing and in The Stinging Fly. Her debut short story collection, The China Factory, was published last year by The Stinging Fly press and has received a very warm critical response internationally. Long-listed for the Guardian First Book Award, The China Factory has been described by The Sunday Independent as “twelve perfect stories.” Mary Costello is a rising Irish literary star.

Poetry slams have provided many emerging poets with an important platform over the past decade, but now it’s the fiction writers’ turn. The first twelve fiction writers to make it to The Kitchen @ The Museum on the evening of Friday, October 11^th and register will be guaranteed a place in the slam. All participating writers should bring two pieces of their own fiction, as there are two rounds. The time limit in both rounds is five minutes. Extracts from longer stories are admissible. Stories do not have to be memorised. The Fiction Slam will be judged by a three person jury made up of two audience members and Mary Costello. Three writers will go through to the second round and the prize for the winner is a bottle of wine.

There is no entrance fee. All welcome. For further information contact 087-6431748.

Over The Edge acknowledges the ongoing generous financial support of the Arts Council and Galway City Council. http://www.overtheedgeliteraryevents.blogspot.com/

Big Smoke Writing Factory - October 2013

Upcoming courses

BEGINNING TO WRITE CLASSES (weekly) Beginning To Write (10 weeks) TUESDAYS, starting October 8th 2013, 7pm-9pm, €240 [full] SATURDAYS, starting October 5th 2013, 2pm-4pm, €240 Write The Play - Playwriting for Beginners (8 weeks) THURSDAYS, starting October 3rd 2013, 7pm-9pm, €200 Beginning To Write Fiction (6 weeks) WEDNESDAYS, starting November 6th 2013, 6.30pm-8.30pm, €150  *** SPECIALIST COURSES AND WORKSHOPS (weekly) Dublin Young Authors (6 weeks) For teenagers SATURDAYS, starting October 5th 2013, 11am-1pm, €150 *** DROP-IN CLASSES Creative Writing (drop in) MONDAYS (until mid-December), 6.30pm-7.30pm, €15 per class (payable on the night) *** ONE-DAY WORKSHOPS Beginner's Poetry Writing: Fundamentals and Beyond (half day) SATURDAY, October 5th 2013, 2pm-4.30pm, €35 Introduction to Screenwriting (1 day) SATURDAY, October 19th 2013, 10am-4pm, €75 Intermediate/Advanced Poetry Workshop (half day) SATURDAY, October 5th 2013, 10am-12.30pm, €40 SATURDAY, November 16th 2013, 10am-12.30pm, €40 Revising Your Work (half day) SATURDAY, November 23rd 2013, 10am-1pm, €40 Writing Children's and Young Adult Fiction (1 day) SATURDAY, November 23rd 2013, 10am-4pm, €75 Getting Published (half day) SATURDAY, December 7th 2013, 10am-1pm, €40 *** As ever, if you've any queries about which course might suit your needs best, please do get in touch - we're at 087-976-6253 if you need to phone, or bigsmokewritingfactory@gmail.com if you prefer email.  We hope to see you soon!

ShortWrites competition

Competitions

ShortWrites has relaunched with a brand new look and to celebrate this, we have decided to run a new competition for the best Short Story submitted to us. So, if you think you have what it takes to write a prize winning short story, then see details below as to the prizes, terms and at the bottom of the page you can submit your story to us.
We plan to run competitions on a regular basis, so make sure you check back monthly to see what our latest competitions are.

 Prizes for the competition will be:

1st Place: £200 and an eBook publishing package**
2nd Place: £100
3rd Place: £50

• Entries are free, but Entrants need to be a member of shortwrites.com in order to enter.
• We will accept up to 3 entries per member
• Closing date for entries is midnight on Saturday, 30th November 2013
• Results of the completion will be posted on the site on Wednesday 18th December and the winners will be contacted on that day.
• All entries have to be original and cannot have been previously published in any form.
• The minimum number of words per entry is 500 and the maximum number is 5000.
• Stories can be from any category
• All entries may be posted on shortwrites.com

** The eBook publishing package will include design and layout of a book of up to 200 pages of text, one round of corrections, design of book cover, conversion into PDF, ePub and Mobi files, listing on appropriate websites.

Man Booker Shortlist 2013

Man Booker Shortlist 2013

We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo (Chatto & Windus)

The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton (Granta)

Harvest by Jim Crace (Picador)

The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri (Bloomsbury)

A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki (Canongate)

The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín (Penguin)

When Robert Macfarlane, the chair of this year's Man Booker Prize judges, announced the longlist he called it the most diverse in recent memory. The 151 novels they started with represented a  grand vista that encompassed everything from the epic to the miniaturist. The longlist distilled the numbers but kept the flavour and now the shortlist has intensified it further.

The six books on the list could not be more diverse. There are examples from novelists from New Zealand, England, Canada, Ireland and Zimbabwe – each with its own highly distinctive taste. 

The judges Messrs Macfarlane, Douglas-Fairhurst, Haynes, Kearney and Kelly have now read each of the books at least twice. Any book that bears re-reading has merit. A book that then stands out above its peers is special indeed. The shortlist is a consensus: it is one that shows that the judges have wide-ranging tastes; that they are unswayed by reputations (many big names didn't make the longlist let alone the shortlist); that they have no predilection for one particular genre; or books by one gender (there are four women and two men on the list); that they like new voices as well as familiar ones; that historical fiction has no more precedence than modern; that form is less important than quality.

And what does the list say about the writers? It is clear that the perennial complaint that fiction is too safe and unadventurous is a ridiculous one; it shows that the novel remains a multi-faceted thing; that writing and inspiration knows no geographical borders; that diaspora tales are a powerful strand in imaginative thinking; and that human voices, in all their diversity, drive fiction. 

The winner will be announced next Tueday.