by Simon Wright

Created on: April 17, 2009

Entering short story competitions can be thrilling for creative writers and there can also be the potential for a financial reward. Many writers also see short story competitions as a means of boosting their writing CVs, which may make it easier to get picked up by a literary agent or to sell your short stories or a novel to a publishing house. However, as any Google search will reveal, there are thousands of listed competitions and the separating those that are worthwhile from those that are either bogus or a waste of time.

Defining what competition attributes are important:

Before considering how to find details of worthwhile competitions, let's start by determining what attributes are important to you? Is it just the thrill of winning? Or are you looking for an illustrious competition? Or do you want a competition that offers feedback? Or is it the prize fund that matters? There's no right answer to which of these attributes is most important but the answers will help to narrow down which competitions will be most suitable to you.

Where to find details of reputable competitions:

Most writers over time will discover websites that prove to be a treasure trove in terms of finding out about good quality short story competitions. I'm no different and here are two websites that I would recommend.

www.fishpublishing.com

Fish Publishing is an Irish-based organisation but attracts submissions from writers from all around the world. Their Fish Short Story competition is an illustrious annual competition that attracts large volumes of submissions. The 15th Fish Short Story competition is now closed but was offering a first prize of 3,000 Euros and second prize was a week at a writers' retreat (plus expenses) in beautiful West Cork, Ireland, with third prize being 300 Euros.

Additional winners get their short stories published in the annual Fish short story anthology, and 100 Euros. However, the real prize is the kudos of being selected as a winner in what is a very high standard competition.

The downsides to the Fish competition are that there's an entrance fee of 20 Euros and the quality and quantity of the competition means that you have to be a very exceptional writer to win. However, they do also offer a critique service (again at a small additional cost) which I have used and found to be very useful.

In addition to their main Fish Short Story Competition, they also run other competitions, such as a one page short story competition and a poetry competition.

www.ukauthors.com

The

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>