short story competitions

27 Mar, Mairtín Crawford Award: Preparing Short Stories For Submission (Online)

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Date Saturday 27 March 2021

Time 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM

Price Free. Book NowMairtín Crawford Award: Preparing Short Stories for Submission

workshop

Join 2021 Short Story Judges Lucy Caldwell and Paul McVeigh in a lively conversation about submitting your work to Awards. Lucy and Paul will speak about their own experience of Awards – as writers and judges; the specificities of the Mairtín Crawford Award and practical approaches to assembling and presenting work for Submission. 

Lucy and Paul will be in conversation for about 45 minutes, then spend 30 minutes responding to your questions.

Please note that questions must be submitted in advance. To submit a question please email BBFSubmissions@CrescentArts.org by 5pm on Wednesday 24th March. Please include in the email that the question is for the Short Story Workshop. 

Can’t make the 27th? This workshop will be recorded and available to stream online afterwards. 

This event is free to attend and registration is essential. 

Lucy Caldwell is the author of four novels, including the forthcoming These Days (Faber, Spring 2022), two short story collections, including Intimacies, out this May, and several stage plays and radio dramas. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, her awards include the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the George Devine Award for Most Promising Playwright, a Fiction Uncovered Award and a Major Individual Artist Award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. In 2019, she edited Being Various, the latest volume in the ongoing Faber series of New Irish Short Stories.

Paul McVeigh‘s debut novel, The Good Son, won The Polari First Novel Prize and The McCrea Literary Award and was shortlisted for many others including the Prix du Roman Cezam in France. His short stories have appeared in Faber’s Being Various, Kit de Waal’s Common People, The Art of the Glimpse and have been read on Radio 4 and Sky Arts. He is associate director of Word Factory ‘the national organisation for excellence in the short story’ The Guardian, and he co-founded London Short Story Festival. Paul has edited Belfast Stories, Queer Love: Anthology of Irish Fiction and The 32: An Anthology of Irish Working Class Voices.

Maria Edgeworth Festival

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The Maria Edgeworth Festival and society produce events celebrating the legacy of Maria Edgeworth – this is very exciting to me as I read Castle Rackrent at university. They also promote and celebrate the rich cultural and literary heritage of County Longford. This year is the 400th anniversary of the arrival of her family to Edgeworthstown. I’m delighted to be judging their short story competition (and giving out the prize at the fest), teaching a class and reading from my work.

Here’s my events…

11th May 2019

11.00 a.m. – 1.00 p.m. Short Story Workshop with Paul McVeigh (click to book)
Venue: The Old Schoolhouse, Edgeworthstown

8.00 p.m. Anniversary Celebration (click to book)
Venue: The Manor Church, Edgeworthstown
Poetry and Short Story Readings, featuring Nuala O’Connor and Paul McVeigh
Story & Song with Aidan O’Hara
Music and song with Eleanor Quaine and Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann.
Presentation of prizes to competition winners.
Refreshments served

Check out the rest of the events here…

“I devoured it in a day, but I’ve thought about it for many, many more. ”
Bailey’s Prize-winner Lisa McInerney
“A triumph of storytelling. An absolute gem.”
Donal Ryan

I’m judging The Sean Ó Faolain Short Story Prize

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I’m judging THE SEÁN Ó FAOLÁIN INTERNATIONAL SHORT STORY PRIZE 2017

The winner will get €2,000 and publication in the literary journal Southword. If that’s not enough they will also get a week-long residency at Anam Cara Writer’s and Artist’s Retreat AND If the winner comes to Cork to collect their prize, they will provide hotel accommodation, meals, drinks and VIP access to the literary stars at the Cork International Short Story Festival (September 13-16, 2017). WOW!

by-john-minihan-2

Cork Short Story Festival 2016 by legendary photographer  John Minihan

 

Second Prize is £500 and publication in Southword. Four more shortlisted entries will be selected for publication in Southword and receive a publication fee of €120.

The Seán Ó Faoláin Short Story Competition is an annual short story competition open to writers from around the world, submissions accepted from May to August annually. It is dedicated to one of Ireland’s most accomplished story writers and theorists, sponsored by the Munster Literature Centre. The Munster Literature Centre is a not-for-profit organisation; all moneys raised from the competition benefits writers and writing.

Anam Cara Writer’s and Artist’s Retreat www.anamcararetreat.com is again awarding a week-long residency to the first prize winner of the Seán Ó Faoláin Short Story Competition. Located just outside the colourful village of Eyeries on the Beara Peninsula in West Cork, Anam Cara is a tranquil spot structured to provide support and sanctuary for people working in the creative arts. It offers private and common working rooms as well as five acres of walking paths, thirty-four nooks and crannies, a river cascades and a river island, gardens, and a labyrinth meadow. Editoral consultation is also available. The prize is valued at €700.

Click here for submission guidelines.

Looking forward to reading your entries.

Get writing! Get submitting! Get Published!

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I’m Associate Director at the wonderful Word Factory. If you love short stories you should come along to the monthly event to hear the best short story writers in the world read their work and discuss the form.

Each month Word Factory produces a list of short story submission opportunities for writers and there’s also links to interesting resources. These are taken from my blog for writers which you find and have a look here.

Get writing! Get submitting! Get published!

PaulMcVeigh short story

 

Missed My Sold Out Class in Bath? Try Brighton Oct 10.

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‘That Killer First Page’, my class on the short story, has now sold out in Bath on Oct 17. It’s been quite a run… sold out in Belfast, Cork, Waterstones Piccadilly and Writers Victoria, Melbourne, where it broke records by selling out in 20 minutes!

If you missed your chance in Bath you could always try Brighton. I’ll be teaching the class for New Writing South writer development agency on October 10. Click here to find out more.

PaulMcVeigh short story

Don’t forget I’m judging the Penny Dreadful Novella Prize alongside Sarah Baume and Colin Barrett and am the sole judge of the Bare Fiction Short Story Prize.

Why not enter this short story contest? I’m judging!

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I’m judging this short story competition alongside Laura Del-Rivo. You have until 31 August – here’s the details. Or click here.

For this new competition we’re taking inspiration from Arthur Rimbaud’s famous declaration ‘Je est un autre’ – ‘I is another’.

The task

We would like you to write a story in the first person about someone who is not you but which is about a subject close to year heart. Therefore the storyline will really matter to you but the story should not be autobiographical.

It should have a strong theme such as betrayal, sorrow, lust, jealousy or revenge and be under 2000 words.

Take your inspiration from:

Cathedral by Raymond Carver
Notes on Time by Laura Del-Rivo
Development by Karen Jennings

What is the prize?

The author of the winning short story will receive £200.

The winning short story and runners-up will be published in our online magazine.

The winner and runners-up will be announced at an awards ceremony in central London.

The Judges

Paul McVeigh and Laura Del-Rivo

Who can take part?

We accept stories from anywhere in the world but submissions have to comply with these guidelines:
The short story has to be written in English
Translations are not accepted
The short story should be 2000 words or less
The short story must be the original work of the entrant and must not have been previously awarded or published
You can only send in one short story per entrant
We only accept electronic (email) submissions
When is the closing date?

You can send in your entries from 1 February and the competition closes on 31 August 2015.

How to submit your entry

In order to enter the competition you have to email us: submissions@hollandparkpress.co.uk We regret that we cannot process entries that do not follow the guidelines set out below, so please read these instructions carefully.
The short story must be attached as a single Microsoft Word file
The Word file has to be named as follows: ddmmyy_firstnamesurname_another.doc, where ddmmyy is the date on which you send the email, firstname and surname are your names.
‘I is Another’ must appear in the subject line of the email
The body of the email should contain your contact details
Please do not add your name or contact details to the Word file attachment that contains your story
Good luck! We look forward to receiving your story.

 

Teaching ‘That Killer First Page’ in Bath, Oct 17.

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I’ll be running my ‘That Killer First Page’ class for Bath Short Story Award October 17. Here’s the details. Hope to see some of you there.

…We are delighted to host this three-hour workshop with Paul McVeigh, co-founder of the London Short Story Festival, Associate Director at Word Factory, the UK’s leading short story salon and a reader and judge for national and international short story competitions.

Saturday October 17th, 1.45 pm – 4.45 pm Bath Central Library, Bath. Cost £40. Book here, places limited.

Find out what competition judges and journal editors look for in a short story and how to avoid the rejection pile. You’ll get tips on staying focused, where to start the action, how to write with emotional impact, and how to edit your story Then you’ll have a go at writing the opening of your story and get brief feedback from Paul. You’ll also look at submission opportunities; how to find them and where you should be sending your stories.

Paul McVeigh’s short fiction has been published in journals and anthologies and been commissioned by BBC Radio 4. He has read his work on BBC Radio 5 at the International Conference on the Short Story in Vienna, the Belfast Book Festival and the Cork International Short Story Festival where he is appearing again in September this year. He is also appearing at the Wroclaw Short Story Festival Poland in October.

The Good SonPaul’s novel The Good Son was published to acclaim in April by Salt publishing and has recently been short listed for the Guardian Not the Booker Prize.

This year he is judging the Penny Dreadful Novella Prize alongside Sarah Baume and Colin Barrett, The I is Another Short Story Competition alongside Laura Del Rivo and is the sole judge of the Bare Fiction Short Story Prize.

Last year this Killer First Page workshop was a sell out in Melbourne Australia, and Waterstones Piccadilly. Spaces limited to 20.

Comments from previous workshop participants

“Fantastic! Practical, targeted advice like this is wonderful!”
“This was my fave course yet! Informative, entertaining, and engaging. Hard to beat.”

“I emerged from the sleepy hamlet of my writing infancy last Saturday and was sky-rocketed, hurricaned, tsunamied, autobahned and g-forced out of my head by Paul McVeigh’s “That Killer First Page” Masterclass at Waterstones, Piccadilly. He’s on top of his game, gives instinctive, constructive criticism and in a few short hours, had conveyed the essence of how to make a story compelling and unputdownable from the first few lines. Get on one of his courses if you can.”