Retreat West newsletters

Here are the latest newsletter for my followers to peruse:

The deadline for the September Micro Fiction comp is here! You have until 23.59 to send us your stories to be in with a chance of winning the prizes. As of now, the cash prize for the winner is £120 but it's going up every hour. You'll get a free entry to the annual Flash Fiction Prize too, which closes in October and has a top prize of £350 and publication in the paperback and ebook anthology. Get writing! PS. If you sign up as a Flash Fiction Member you'll get entries to these comps included in your subscription, plus lots of other great stuff!   See the latest prompt and enter your story here Copyright © 2019 Retreat West, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Retreat West Apartment 3735 Chynoweth House Trevissome Park Truro, Cornwall TR4 8UN United Kingdom

Just a quick note to let you know that the prompt for the September Micro Fiction comp is now online and you have 7 days to write your story. Last month's winner, Andrew Boulton, scooped a cash prize of £252 and this month's cash prize will be determined by the number of entries we get. Andrew and our second prize winner, Sherry Morris, both get a free entry to the annual Flash Fiction Prize too, which closes in October and has a top prize of £350 and publication in the paperback and ebook anthology. Get writing! PS. If you sign up as a Flash Fiction Member you'll get entries to these comps included in your subscription, plus lots of other great stuff!   See the latest prompt and enter your story here Copyright © 2019 Retreat West, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Retreat West Apartment 3735 Chynoweth House Trevissome Park Truro, Cornwall TR4 8UN United Kingdom

It's all about flash fiction this week! Voting for the July Monthly Micro Fiction competition closes on Monday so you have a few more days to pick your favourite. We've received over 160 votes already and it's very close at the moment between the top four stories so your vote can really make a difference! Read them all and cast your vote here. The August comp will go live on 5th August so keep an eye out for the prompt on that day. In case you missed it, last week the new Flash Weekender online course opened for bookings. This is a 3-day course focused on generating new work and experimenting with different prompts from Amanda Saint and Mary-Jane Holmes. Plus you get an online forum to collaborate with classmates and develop your ideas. Get all the info and book here. We received a couple of bookings straight away so great to see it's a popular choice. Do let us know if there are online courses or live workshops you would like to see us run. Book a place on our Flash Fiction Retreat by July 28th and you'll get a £75 discount plus a paperback copy of our new Future Shock anthology that's coming out on 4th September. This fun and intense 6-day retreat will get you working on a novella-in-flash and creating new work for a flash fiction collection, as well as having time for naps in front of the log burner and walks in the Exmoor woods! We're busy reading the entries for the WIND themed flash competition that closed at the end of June and will announce the longlist soon. The next theme is WATER and you have until 29th September to send us your stories for this one and be in with a chance of winning up to £400 and getting published on the website. Enter your stories here. And if you have lots of flash stories that you're polishing and getting ready to send out into the world then the annual Retreat West Flash Fiction Prize is un-themed so you can send us stories on any topic for this one. The judge this year is the brilliant flash writer, Meg Pokrass, and the 10 shortlisted authors all win a cash prize and get published in the paperback and ebook anthology. Happy flashing! From all of us at Retreat West PS. A brief note on novel writing! There are just 3 spaces left at the retreat Amanda Saint is teaching at in Italy now so if you were hoping take control of your plot and characters with her in October, you better snap up one of those last rooms! All the info is here.  There are just 5 spaces left now on the Ultimate Novel Writing Course that Amanda Saint has partnered with Jericho Writers to deliver. This is an intensive year-long course starting in September where you'll get mentored all the way through writing a first draft or revising an early one. Our HUGE congratulations to Abigail Johnson who revised her manuscript with Amanda Saint on the pilot version of the course and has just been longlisted for the prestigious Bath Novel Award with it. Best of luck to her for the shortlist announcement at the end of this month!   Copyright © 2019 Retreat West, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Retreat West Apartment 3735 Chynoweth House Trevissome Park Truro, Cornwall TR4 8UN United Kingdom

The shortlisted stories in our Monthly Micro competition are now live on the website. You have until 23.59 (BST) on 22nd July to vote for your favourite. The winner will get a cash prize of £234, published in the flash fiction area of the website, and a free entry to the annual RW Flash Fiction Prize, which has over £700 in cash prizes available to the top 10 stories and publication in the annual paperback and ebook anthology. There were some really fantastic takes on this month's prompt and we enjoyed reading all the entries. Well done to our 10 shortlisted writers. Read the stories and cast your vote here. Winners will be announced shortly after voting closes and the next comp will go live on Monday 5th August. We've had so much brilliant feedback on this new comp so really pleased that everyone is enjoying it so much. We're excited to have another new team member at Retreat West and send a huge welcome to Gaynor Jones, who will be helping with book promo, editorial and web support. Gaynor's an award winning writer known for her strange and surreal takes on life. Among other accolades she was the 2018 Northern Writer of the Year at the Northern Soul Awards and won first prize in the 12th round of the prestigious Bath Flash Fiction Award. Get more info on Gaynor here. And in even more excitement, the first of the new courses with our other new team member, is now open for bookings. Join Mary-Jane Holmes and Amanda Saint online for the Flash Weekender - three days of flash fiction fun all from the comfort of your own home! It's limited to just 20 spaces and you'll get feedback on stories created from both Amanda and Mary-Jane. Get all the details and book a space here. Reminder of a deadline coming up - there's just over a month left to enter the Retreat West Novel Prize and be in with a chance of winning a publishing deal with Retreat West Books. Get all the info on that here! Happy reading and writing! From all of us at Retreat West WRITING RETREATS Plot & Character Retreat Join Amanda Saint for a 6-night writing retreat in Italy. Learn how to develop your novel plot and characters together to deliver a pacy read with emotional resonance. Only 3 rooms still available.   Get more info on the retreat venue's website Flash Fiction Retreat Amanda Saint and guest tutor, Michael Loveday, will be teaching at a 6-night retreat in Devon, UK. Learn how to write a novella-in-flash and get started with a flash collection. Only 5 rooms still available.   Get more info on our website WRITING COURSES The Ultimate Novel Writing Course We're working with Jericho Writers to bring you a year-long novel writing course with 1-1 mentoring and publishing support. Starts September 2019. Only 7 spaces left.   Get more info on the Jericho Writers website Flash Weekender Join us this autumn to get flash fiction prompts, readings and discussions via email and an online forum to chat and share work with your course mates. Only 20 spaces available. Get more info on our website WRITING COMPETITIONS Retreat West Novel Prize Deadline: 18th August 2019 1st Prize: Publishing deal with Retreat West Books with £500 advance 2nd Prize: Full manuscript critique 3rd Prize: One year's Gold Author Membership with Retreat West   Enter here Copyright © 2019 Retreat West, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Retreat West Apartment 3735 Chynoweth House Trevissome Park Truro, Cornwall TR4 8UN United Kingdom