Our
annual prose competition launches today! This is the third year it’s been
running and this year we’re proud to announce that our guest judge is Emma
Healey. It’s fantastic to have her on board because Emma is a critically acclaimed writer
whose debut novel Elizabeth Is Missing won the Costa First Novel Award. Also Emma is
closely linked to the region as an alumna of the MA in Creative Writing at the
University of East Anglia.
Emma will be
looking for keen observation in the competition entries. She tells us that:
‘It is always wonderful
to find a writer has described a sensation never put into words before, come up
with a perfect metaphor for something, or created a stunningly vivid image in
the mind of a reader. It's also exciting to find the mundane transformed into
the extraordinary or the extraordinary made to feel familiar.
'I'd
love to read pieces which say something about our time, or our location,
stories which are striving for some kind of meaning, even if they are only
asking questions for the reader to try and answer.
'I'd
like to find emotional honesty in the pieces, and writing which is full of
bravery rather than swagger, by authors who aren't afraid of exploring the
feelings of their characters, or of letting the reader get close to the emotion
of the writer.
‘Lastly
I'm hoping to read pieces in which humour hasn't been forgotten. That doesn't
mean the subject or situation has to be funny, but even a tragic tale can be
lifted by a witty observation, a moment of hysterical hyperbole or even a
straightforward joke.'
More
details about the competition can be found on our dedicated blog page ‘Prose
comp’ but in short:
The competition
offers a cash prize of £600 and publication in Words and Women: Three. Entry is open to all women writers over the
age of 16 who live or work in the East of England. Short works of fiction, memoir, life-writing
and creative non-fiction are all welcome. The anthology, published in partnership
with Unthank Books, will be launched on International Women’s Day, 8th
March, 2016, Words And Women’s fifth anniversary.
Entries should be
2,200 words or under. Extracts from
longer works will not be considered. It costs £10 per submission, and the deadline
for entries is 15th November 2015.
Winners will be announced in January 2016. In the blog post below Lora Stimson,
last year’s winner, describes what winning the competition has done for her.
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