Every year, a single judge is asked to choose three winning stories to feature in the autumn issue of The Moth, the international art & literature magazine based in Ireland.
This year's judge is Ottessa Moshfegh. Her first novel, Eileen, was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Man Booker Prize and won the PENSupported by eminent writers, this is the English branch of International Pen, which has centres in nearly 100 countries. It fights for freedom of expression and against political censorship. It campaigns for writers harassed, imprisoned and sometimes murdered for their views. http://www.englishpen.org//Hemingway Award for debut fiction. Her next three novels were New York Times bestsellers. She is also the author of a novella, McGlue, and the short story collection Homesick for Another World.
1st prize €3,000 2nd prize week-long writing retreat at Circle of Misse in France plus open travel stipend 3rd prize €1,000
The Prize is open to anyone over 16, as long as the work is original and previously unpublished. There is a word limit of 3,000. The entry fee is €15 per story. Closing 30 June 2023.
The winning story will be printed as part of the summer fiction series in the Irish Times, while the 2nd and 3rd-prize-winning stories will be published in the Irish Times online.
With thanks to Circle of Misse for the superb second prize of a week-long writing retreat in France and an open travel stipend, enabling the 2nd prize winner to travel to France from anywhere in the world.
Submissions open on Thursday the 1st of June. Authors can submit picture book stories, together with your own artwork (not someone else's) if you are an author-illustrator.
Before submitting your stories to us, we would like to ask that you familiarise yourself with current fiction picture books for children aged around 3-5, especially if you're new to writing for this age group.
Stories can be in prose or rhyme, and the themes and types of characters (magical, mythical, human, animal, and everything in-between!) are totally up to you. Stories informed by your LGBTQ+ identity and experience are especially welcomed.
Please send no more than three picture book texts to LGBTQPlus@nosycrow.com, along with a short biography in the body of the email. The window for submissions is for a limited time only, from the 1st of June 2022 to the 30th of June 2023. I'm afraid any submissions received after this time will not be considered.
It's free to submit stories, and we welcome submissions from around the world, but they must be in the English language and unpublished anywhere in any country. Authors and author-illustrators must be aged 18 or older.
If you have any questions, email LGBTQPlus@nosycrow.com. I'm looking forward to hearing from you, either via your agent, or directly from you if you don't have one.
Chicken House 'is thrilled to announce' the opening of its 2022 writing competition, in conjunction with The Times, and with a new prize sponsored by TV production company Lime Pictures. The deadline for submissions is 1 June 2023.
According to organisers: 'Now the biggest children's writing competition in the UK, the Times/Chicken House Children's Fiction Competition has been running for 13 years and has kickstarted the careers of many of the most established writers for both children and adults in the UK - including Jasbinder Bilan (Costa-winning author of Asha & the Spirit Bird), S.J. Bennett (The Windsor Knot) and Efua Traoré (Waterstones Prize-shortlisted Children of the Quicksands). Since the competition's inception, over half of shortlistees have gone on to be published, including winners.
'The competition is open to unpublished, unagented writers based anywhere in the world. We accept entries aimed at readers from age 7 all the way up to age 18 (Young Adult). The top prize is a publishing contract with Chicken House with an advance of £10,000, plus the offer of representation from literary agent Davinia Andrew-Lynch of Andlyn.
'This year also sees the introduction of the Lime Pictures New Storyteller Award, a bespoke prize sponsored by leading TV production company Lime Pictures, awarded to the submission which shows the greatest TV development potential and chosen by Chicken House Publisher Barry Cunningham and Lime Pictures' Tim Compton. The winner will receive a £7,500 publishing contract plus an offer of representation. Lime Pictures will receive an exclusive first look at all shortlisted manuscripts. The Lime Pictures New Storyteller Award will replace the Chairman's Choice Award.'
Barry Cunningham, Chicken House Publisher and MD, said: "I'm thrilled with how this special competition just grows and grows, welcoming new talent from around the world - and how it always manages to surprise and amaze the judges with fresh new writing!"
This year's competition will be judged by a panel of industry experts, including Cunningham, The Times Arts Editor Alex O'Connell, Lime Pictures' Co-Head of Kids and Family Tim Compton and literary agent Davinia Andrew-Lynch.
The competition costs £20 to enter and is open to writers from all over the world, as long as they write in English, are unagented and have not had a children's book published before.
Now the biggest children's writing competition in the UK, the Times/Chicken House Children's Fiction Competition has been running for 12 years and has kickstarted the careers of many of the most established writers for both children and adults in the UK - including Jasbinder Bilan (Costa-winning author of Asha & the Spirit Bird), SJ Bennett (The Windsor Knot) and Nicki Thornton (The Last Chance Hotel series). Since the competition's inception, 62% of shortlistees have gone on to be published, including winners.
The competition is open to unpublished, unagented writers based anywhere in the world. We accept entries aimed at readers from age 7 all the way up to age 18 (Young Adult).
The top prize is a publishing contract with Chicken House with an advance of £10,000, plus the offer of representation from literary agent Louise Lamont at LBA Books, who will also be on this year's judging panel.
A second prize, the Chairman's Choice Award - awarded to the manuscript which shows the most potential - will win a £7,500 publishing contract plus an offer of representation.
Chicken House publisher Barry Cunningham said: "I'm thrilled with how this special competition just grows and grows, welcoming new talent from around the world - and how it always manages to surprise and amaze the judges with fresh new writing!"
This year's competition will be judged by a panel of industry experts, including Barry Cunningham, The Times Arts Editor Alex O'Connell, YA Book Prize-winning author Patrice Lawrence, author and booktuber Lucy Powrie, LBA Books literary agent Louise Lamont, bookseller Sanchita Basu de Sarkar from Children's Bookshop Muswell Hill, and literary scout Rosalind Ramsay.
The competition costs £20 to enter and is open to writers from all over the world, as long as they write in English, are unagented and have not had a children's book published before.
‘I write what I would like to read – what I think other women would like to read. If what I write makes a woman in the Canadian mountains cry and she writes and tell me about it, especially if she says, ‘I read it to Tom when he came in form work and he cried too’, I feel I have succeeded.’
