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Competition Showcase | Online competition | WN competitions | WM competitions | Rules

Writing Magazine competition programme
Writers' News competition programme


After a long association with the David St John Thomas Charitable Trust, Writers' News and Writing Magazine have launched their own exciting competition programmes, with lots of prizes and extra opportunities for short story and poetry winners to be published either in print or online.

The DSJT Trust continues to organise its own writing competitions, details of which appear in Writers' News, giving our subscribers access to the Trust's programme as well.

Our new WN/WM programme has been designed so there will be a smarter turn-around in the judging process, with all main prizewinners being published within five to six months of a competition being announced. The timetable still makes it convenient for entries from overseas.

There will be year-round money-saving benefits for our Writers' News subscribers, with free entry to all WN competitions. Writers' News entries will no longer need to be accompanied by three first-class stamps or, in the case of overseas entries, two International Reply Coupons.

The normal fee for each Writing Magazine short story and poetry entry will be £3, but as an added benefit our subscribers will pay only £2 per entry.
Full competition rules will appear in December's Writing Magazine and Writers' News.

The full Writers' News/Writing Magazine 2006-2007 programmes – sometimes offering first, second and third places in both short story and poetry categories – with its imaginative range of subjects to get the writing juices flowing, appear here and here.

There you will see a fascinating selection chosen by our competition compiling team, based on both traditional themes and contemporary life. The choice is yours: draw your ideas from past times, or use your talents to dwell on what is offered by present day experiences or observations.

The list of short story subjects represents a collection of situations and subjects from which to create the heroes, villains, dreamers, winners, losers, humdrum nobodies, high-fliers... or whichever characters you create to populate your tales.

To take just a brief look at what is on offer, it could be someone in debt (WM, January), a railway ghost (WM, March), a gambler (WN, April), a swimmer (WN, October).

You will also be able to celebrate literary and other anniversaries with poetry reflecting the modern world: the commercialisation of St Valentine's Day, Space travel, Letters from abroad...

In different vein, you will be given the opportunity to write poetry in diverse styles – the villanelle of five three-line stanzas, the 31-syllable Japanese Tanka, for example.

All first prize-winning short stories will be published in Writers' News or Writing Magazine as appropriate; second and third prize-winning stories will be published on this website; selected runners-up may also appear on our website.

First, second, and possibly third prize-winning poems will be published in Writers' News or Writing Magazine as appropriate; they, and selected runners-up, may also be published on this website.

Do join in. Enjoy the experience... and good luck to everyone.