New for 2019 we’re combining our annual Verse of the Year and Manuscript of the Year Competitions into one evening.
Whether its poetry or prose (or both) our members have the opportunity to compete for the individual trophies for either or both of these competitions.
Only full members can enter, but anyone attending the meeting may vote for the winning poem and prose.
In both categories members will be given a theme prior to the competition night. Entrants have up to 250 words for the prose and a maximum of 16 lines (in any form) for the poetry.
All entries are submitted under a pseudonym and the audience only discover the winner and runners-up after the votes are counted and the winning titles announced.
Always an enjoyable evening…
Each November full members have the opportunity to enter the competition to win the Manuscript of the Year Trophy.
Entrants are given a set theme in the Autumn issue of the club magazine ‘Scribe’, and members have 250 words to create a story.
This year’s theme is CLIMATE.
Writers enter their stories under a pseudonym, requesting either a male or female reader for their story.
After all the entries have been read twice, voting takes place.
The top three entries are announced (in reverse order) and the winning writers reveal their identity.
The winning writer holds the trophy from Awards Night in December around to November the following year.
March is our annual Verse of the Year Competition.
Full members have the opportunity to write a poem in any form up to a maximum of 16 lines, and by use of a pseudonym anonymity is maintained.
This year our verse theme is Disaster.
Readers perform the entries on the night, and then the winner is decided by anonymous audience vote after all entries are heard twice.
In reverse order the results are announced and the winning writers identify themselves.
The successful writer will be presented with the Verse of the Year trophy at Awards Night in December…
At the end of the competition (if there’s time) the audience can suggest themes for the Manuscript of the Year Competition later in the year.
The 5th NWC National Short Story Competition is open for entries from the 1st February to the 28th February.
This year’s theme is the Seasons: spring, summer, autumn, winter- choose one.
This year we have made a few changes to the rules of entry, so please read the rules in the entry pack to check you’re eligible, before you submit your short story.
You may enter online, or by post.
Please don’t submit poems, chapbooks, or non-fiction under the guise of a short story.
Our judge this year is short story writer Fran Tracey; Fran worked as a professional librarian before becoming a full-time writer fifteen years ago, and writes regularly for Woman’s Weekly, My Weekly and other magazines both in the UK and internationally.
Her first published story appeared in ‘You’ magazine in South Africa. She has won and been runner up in a number of national writing competitions and her work has featured in numerous anthologies, the most recent being ‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn’, a charity anthology for ‘Make a Wish Foundation’ based upon the Ernest Hemmingway very short story.
We look forward to reading your stories this year…
Our February speaker meeting is Competitions: Do’s and Don’ts.
There are numerous writing competitions running every year, so how do you avoid scuppering your chance of being in contention when you do enter?
NWC Scribe editor Jill Walmsley, and Prose Secretary Carol Bevitt will be giving you a helping hand to get the most out of entering writing competitions; covering various topics including, rules, fees vs free, editing for maximum word counts, where to find competitions, and much more. There will be hand-outs to take away and a Q&A.
If you leave inspired then there’s still time to enter this year’s NWC National Short Story Competition. Download details from here.
Our first meeting in November is our Manuscript of the Year Competition for full NWC members.
This year’s theme is ‘Celebration’. We’re still celebrating our 90th anniversary…
Members have 250 words to create a story inspired by this year’s theme. Entry is with a pseudonym, so neither the readers nor the audience know who is the author of each story.
It’s the audience vote on the night that will decide this year’s winner.
