To celebrate 10 years of successful online tutoring and recognise the creative talent and ability of unsung writers everywhere, writingclasses is proud to announce our new international short story competition. Unpublished writers will have the opportunity to be published in an ebook anthology of short stories entitled Summer Rain.
1st Prize
£75 cash and publication as the lead story in a short story ebook collection entitled Summer Rain to be published by Pilrig Press.
2nd and 3rd prizes
£50 and £25 respectively and publication in the short story ebook collection entitled Summer Rain.
Runners Up
Publication in the Summer Rain ebook.
Summary of Conditions of Entry
Theme: Summer Rain
Length: 2000 words maximum (no minimum)
Closing: October 30th 2012
Entry fee: £5
Language: All entries must be in English
Previous use: All entries must be original and unpublished (in print, digitally or on the web)
Results: Announced January, 2013
Publication: E-anthology will be published online: February 2013
How to Enter
All entries must be sent by email and the story must be sent as an attachment to the email.
You should include your name and address and age and the title of your short story in the body of your email.
You must put the name of your short story in the subject box of your email, preceeded by SUMMER RAIN SUBMISSION (eg: SUMMER RAIN: MY STORY TITLE).
All entries and must be in English and written in word or open office.
Pages must be numbered and the name of your story must be in the header or footer.
Names or addresses must not appear anywhere on the stories.
Entries are not returned, so do keep a copy.
Include in the body of the email your full name, and address, age, and the title of your story.
All submissions must be sent and the entry fee paid by 30th October.
How to Pay
As soon as you have submitted your story, please pay the £5 entry fee using the Paypal link below. Please make sure the name of the entrant and the story title are included with your paypal payment.
As soon as you send your paypal payment, your entry will be acknowledged by email.
Full Term and Conditions of Entry
The theme of the competition is Summer Rain. You can interpret that any way you like! Maximum length 2,000 words.
The title must be in your own words and is NOT included in the word count.
The competition is open to writers of any nationality but writing must be in English.
Entries must be submitted and paid for by 30th October 2012.
Entry fee is £5 or the equivalent in your local currency (as determined by PayPal at the point of payment).
All proceeds will go towards the administration of the prizes, the prizes themselves, and the publication of the ebook. Any surplus will be carried forward to help fund next year’s competition.
You may enter as many times as you wish.
Entry is by email attachment only, see How To Enter above (all other entries will be automatically disqualified).
All entries must be original, must be previously unpublished, and must remain unpublished before October 30th 2012. This includes any form of publication, including print, ebook or online (e.g. on a blog).
You must be the copyright holder for any work you enter into the competition.
When you enter, you retain full copyright over your work but you grant us a non-exclusive license to publish your work (if selected as a winning entry) in a short story anthology ebook. This ebook will be distributed free of charge and no royalties will be payable to you.
You will be clearly identified as the author of any published work in the ebook and must agree to this publicity. You can, however, use a pseudonym if you wish.
You must warrant that your entry does not infringe any law or regulation or third party right, including (but not limited to) the law of copyright or trademarks.
The prize is non-negotiable and no cash alternative will be offered.
No correspondence will be entered into once work has been submitted.
Stories cannot be altered or changed after they have been entered.
Judging at all stages is anonymous.
The decision of the judges is final.
Entry is taken to be acceptance of these rules.
Entry Criteria
You must be aged 18 years or older. Proof of age may be required.
The purpose of this competition is to encourage new talent so we are restricting entry to previously unpublished writers. That’s not so easy to define these days! However, you may not enter if you have had a full-length work (novel, novella, short story collection) published in print or electronically, or broadcast on television or radio, or performed on stage commercially. However, if you have self-published in print or electronically, or if you have created a publishing company to self-publish, that’s fine; you may enter.
