Mslexia newsletters

 With details of where to submit your work this month and more:

Can you believe this is our last writing opportunities round-up of the summer? For the second month on the bounce we struggled to narrow down the vast plethora of submission opportunities for you – there are just so many places that want to read your work. Truly, we love to see it. We hope you enjoy this tasting platter, but if you'd like access to the full smorgasbord of opportunities, you can find hundreds more in our upcoming autumn issue – subscriptions start at just £19.99 per year.     SUBSCRIBE NOW     THE MOTH NATURE WRITING PRIZE This comp celebrates the art of nature writing, and is awarded annually to an unpublished piece of prose or poetry (up to 4,000 words) which 'best combines exceptional literary merit with an exploration of the writer’s relationship with the natural world.' The winner nabs €1,000 and a week at the luxurious Circle of Misse writing retreat in the south of France. Incroyable! Deadline: 15 September Entry fee: €15 Enter here*     THE SELKIE Is your voice an underrepresented one in publishing? The Selkie accepts work by writers who self-identify as marginalised. They're currently scouting poetry, non-fiction, personal essays and memoir, short fiction and flash fiction on a rolling basis – and we think it would be worth a punt with some of your weirder pieces. Submit here     WRITING MAGAZINE GRAND FLASH PRIZE Flash fiction fanatics, this one's for you. Writing Magazine have just launched their Grand Flash Prize, with £1,000 up for grabs and a max word count of 500 words. Stories can be on any topic, and will be judged by the Writing Magazine editorial team – plus the winner will be published in the magazine in 2022. Deadline: 31 December Entry fee: £15 Enter here*     BOOKOUTURE This mainstream digital imprint is hunting for entertaining fiction manuscripts in a variety of genres, as long as they're geared towards 'smart, modern women'. You'll need a full manuscript plus a short pitch of up to 200 words – no agent necessary – and they aim to respond to every submission within two months. Submit here     NATIONAL POETRY COMPETITION With a top prize of £5,000, the 2021 National Poetry Competition (run by our friends at The Poetry Society) is one of the world’s most prestigious prizes for an unpublished poem. This year's prize boasts a glittering judging panel: Fiona Benson, David Constantine and Rachel Long. Entries can be on any subject or theme, and in any poetic form, as long as they don't exceed 40 lines. Entry fee: £7 Deadline: 31 October Enter here*     NEW WALK MAGAZINE A small press specialising in high quality poetry pamphlets? Sign us up. They're currently interested in acquiring both new and established poets, and are a broad church both stylistically and thematically. Submit a full typescript of 12-20 pages of poems by email, plus a short bio and your postal address. Submit here     ATMOSPHERE PRESS (SPONSORED)   Indie up-and-comer Atmosphere Press is currently seeking novel-length manuscripts. They use an alternative model in which the author funds the initial publication of the book, but retains 100% rights, royalties, and artistic autonomy. Industry kudos is racking up fast: their titles have received starred or featured reviews with Publisher’s Weekly, Kirkus, and Booklist, and have even appeared on a giant billboard in Times Square. Plus we’re big fans of their Author Connect program, which unites its authors in a way we’d love to see in the traditional publishing world. Submissions are free and open to everyone and in all genres. Please note that they’re selective in what they publish, but are looking forward to hearing from you! Submit here*     LONGREADS Longreads is quickly becoming one of our go-to websites for lunchtime reading, and they're open to submissions at the moment. Dedicated to helping people find and share the best storytelling in the world, they feature in-depth investigative reporting, interviews and profiles, podcasts, essays and criticism between 2,000-6,000 – and their rates are properly competitive at $500 for a personal essay. Submit here     GREEN STORIES WRITING COMPETITION 2021 If you have a TV or radio script that engages with the idea of environmentalism and/or sustainability, this one's for you. Send three episodes and a synopsis and you could win free appraisal by TLC and the chance to have your work circulated to production companies. The script world is a tough nut to crack, but this could be an excellent way in!  Deadline: 26 August Entry fee: Free Enter here     FUNNY WOMEN This online comedy hub is seeking pitches for articles on the theme of 'self preservation'. (Where to even begin?) Ping your most side-splitting pitches to editor Kate Stone – and do rifle through the website to get a feel for their tone and vibe. Email Kate     MSLEXIA NOVEL COMPETITION   This year's Mslexia Novel Competition is, without a doubt, our biggest yet. Joining Dame Hilary Mantel (!) on the judging panel are Marianne Tatepo, founder of the Black Agents and Editors Group, and Jo Unwin, founder of eponymous literary agency JULA. The winner will bag £5,000, and three finalists will also receive manuscript feedback from TLC and intros to agents and editors at an invite-only publishing party. Deadline: 20 September Entry fee: £25 Enter here     MSLEXIA SHORT STORY COMPETITION The 2021 Short Story Competition is judged by award-winning novelist and short story writer AL Kennedy, and for the first time in its history, we're offering specialist literary agent mentoring as part of our top prize. The winner will also bag £3,000, with three finalists pocketing £100 each, and the top 12 entries will be published in our inaugural anthology: Best Women's Short Fiction 2021. Deadline: 20 September Entry fee: £12 Enter here     MSLEXIA FLASH FICTION COMPETITION   Micro-fiction aficionados, listen up: we know the thing you want most for your miniature tales is publication, and so for the first time this year, the top 12 entries will be published in our inaugural anthology: Best Women's Short Fiction 2021. Judged by Jude Higgins, director of Flash Fiction Festival UK, the winner will also scoop £500. Deadline: 20 September Entry fee: £6 Enter here     One more thing before you go – have you thought about a subscription to Mslexia magazine? Not only does every quarterly issue contain hundreds of these listings – courses, competitions, retreats and submission slots – but we'll also provide you with all the craft tools you need to take your writing to the next level and maximise your chances of success.  Sound good? Join our thriving community of women writers from just £19.99 a year here! Team M * These listings were sponsored by friends of Mslexia who particularly want to hear from you.   Copyright © 2021 Mslexia Publications Ltd., All rights reserved.         This year's Mslexia Short Story Competition is our biggest and best yet. Not only are we offering a lofty top prize of £3,000 – plus a consultation with a literary agent specialising in short stories – but we're also publishing the top 12 stories in our inaugural anthology: Best Women’s Short Fiction 2021.  This year's judge is A L Kennedy, the award-winning author of 20 books (and counting) – including seven short story collections. Currently working in a darkened room, wresting her 11th novel into shape, she emerged blinking into the light to offer this kindly guidance for writers planning to enter this year's competition. Here's what she's searching for from a future winner... 1. Something surprising ‘Something I didn’t know I was waiting for. Surprise me. No cheap thrills, no tricks, but if you can genuinely provide some degree of wonder, I will be more than happy.’ 2. An idea you care about ‘Pick the idea you really care about, the one that keeps asking you to work with it, the one that’s a bit frightening. You’ll learn more, the idea will thank you, and I’ll end up reading something that has energy and passion and truth.’ 3. Competent grammar ‘Follow the basic rules of writing. I do need to understand what you’re trying to say – and there are agreed ways for you to set that down, how to add pauses and how to spell the words you have chosen.’ 4. Nothing too clever-clever ‘Do you want to keep inserting yourself into your text by doing “clever” things? Or do you want me to be so overtaken by the story that I forget I’m reading, because I’m there? I’m your reader – I’m hungry, thirsty, lonely – and I want to be there.’ 5. Willingness to fail magnificently ‘If you really know what you want to say and who your characters are, then the truth of your story may evaporate all the usual rules. And that will be both exciting and logical, creative, organic. You may fail horribly, but yours will be a magnificent, educational failure, not a beige one. In short: plan, care, commit, create, perfect – have another check, make sure you turned the gas off/turned it on – and give me something you would give any stranger who needs their life to be changed by something which defines its own ways of being beautiful and useful.’ So there you have it! Choose an idea that excites your passion and curiosity, and follow wherever it leads. Don’t be afraid to deviate from your usual route, taking risks with character, voice, subject matter. Better to stumble and trip up, than to travel along well-worn paths. We’d only add: enjoy the journey. Your only restriction is the 3,000-word limit and the deadline of 20 September. We can't wait to read what you come up with!     Enter now     READ MORE: HOW TO TURN A NOVEL CHAPTER INTO A SHORT STORY Creative writing tutor Margaret Wilkinson looks at how to develop a short story from a chapter of your novel. 'A short story has a page-turning narrative drive that keeps the reader’s interest high from start to finish. Momentum can be added by means of delayed revelation. There is often a secret, or some information withheld, in a short story.' Full article     Copyright © 2021 Mslexia Publications Ltd., All rights reserved.     Copyright © 2021 Mslexia Publications Ltd., All rights reserved.         Summer is finally in full swing, and we hope you've notched up a healthy half-year of submissions – but if you've yet to dabble, fear not! Now's the perfect time to dive in. There are so many competitions and submission slots with 31 July deadlines, so we had a really tough job trying to narrow them down for you. We hope you enjoy this tasting platter, but if you'd like access to the full roster of opportunities, you can find dozens more in our summer issue – subscriptions start at just £19.99 per year. (Yes! Not a typo! Per year!)     SUBSCRIBE NOW     MOXY Moxy is a new lit-mag dedicated to top-notch creative nonfiction, and they're seeking essays, autofiction, travel writing and criticism as well as original artwork and cartoons. Word counts should be 1,000-4,000, and they're open to a diverse range of styles and tones. Do have a read through everything on their site before you submit – and try to guess which piece brought us to tears. Submit here     REFINERY29 Fancy writing for one of the biggest pop culture sites in the world? New-in-post UK entertainment editor Maybelle Morgan is hunting for pieces on film, TV, books or music – and you can pitch her by dropping an email at the address below. (Do you think she'd commission a 5,000-word single-sentence rant on how much Hamnet destroyed us?) Email Maybelle     THE STRINGYBARK SEX AND GENDER SHORT STORY AWARD Do you have something to say about sex or sexuality; love or lust; empathy or empowerment; care or consent? The Strinygbark is accepting short fiction up to 1,500 words that explores human relationships from a sex or gender perspective. The prize pool is worth $1,000, plus anthology publication! Deadline: 18 July Entry fee: AU$14 Enter here     WOFFF BEST SHORT SCRIPT PRIZE The WOFFF (that's Women Over Fifty Film Festival to you) has one modus operandi, and that's to get more women over 50 both on-screen and behind the camera. Their annual Best Short Script Prize was launched by Shedunnit Productions in a bid to champion intersectional female-focused ideas. They're currently accepting scripts of up to seven pages, either about a woman over fifty or written by a woman over fifty. Skates on, though – it's closing next week. Entry fee: £6 Deadline: 21 July Enter here     FICTION FACTORY FIRST CHAPTER COMPETITION If you're working on a novel but haven't quite drafted the full shebang yet, this comp is a great one. It's open to any adult fiction genre, and will be judged on the first 5,000 words of the work alone. The prize is £500, plus the winning entry is guaranteed to be read by hot-shot literary agent Joanna Swainson. Entry fee: £18 Deadline: 31 July Enter here     ANTHOLOGY POETRY AWARD This prize was established to recognise and encourage excellence in the craft, and rewards winners with €500 plus publication. This time they're hunting for poems up to 40 lines on the theme of 'freedom'. Entrants can be based anywhere in the world, but the poems themselves must be in English, s'il vous plaît. Deadline: 31 July Entry fee: €10 Enter here     WOW! WOMEN ON WRITING NON-FICTION ESSAY CONTEST This short essay contest has become so popular they've capped entries, so get your pieces in early! Word counts should land between 200–1,000, and they're happy to read far-reaching themes and experimental forms. Prizes include $500 for the winner as well as online publication. Deadline: 31 July Entry fee: $12 Enter here     AESTHETICA CREATIVE WRITING AWARD Our pals at Aesthetica have an absolutely stonking prize pot for this year's Creative Writing Awards. The poetry winner will nab £2,500, a 10-week course from the Poetry School and full membership to the Poetry Book Society, while the fiction winner will also scoop £2,500 and consultation with Redhammer Management. Both will also land anthology publication, an annual subscription to Granta and a selection of books from Vintage. NICE. Deadline: 31 August Entry fee: £12 poetry | £18 short fiction Enter here     MSLEXIA NOVEL COMPETITION   We couldn't be more excited to be launching this year's Novel Competition. Joining Dame Mantel on the panel are Marianne Tatepo, founder of the Black Agents and Editors Group, and Jo Unwin, founder of eponymous literary agency JULA. The winner will bag £5,000, and three finalists will also receive manuscript feedback from TLC and intros to agents and editors at an invite-only publishing party. Deadline: 20 September Entry fee: £25 Enter here     MSLEXIA SHORT STORY COMPETITION This year's Short Story Competition is judged by award-winning novelist and short story writer AL Kennedy, and for the first time in its history, we're offering specialist literary agent mentoring as part of our top prize. The winner will also bag £3,000, with three finalists pocketing £100 each, and the top 12 entries will be published in our inaugural anthology: Best Women's Short Fiction 2021. Deadline: 20 September Entry fee: £12 Enter here     MSLEXIA FLASH FICTION COMPETITION   Micro-fiction aficionados, listen up: we know the thing you want most for your miniature tales is publication, and so for the first time this year, the top 12 entries will be published in our inaugural anthology: Best Women's Short Fiction 2021. Judged by Jude Higgins, director of Flash Fiction Festival UK, the winner will also scoop £500. Deadline: 20 September Entry fee: £6 Enter here     One more thing before you go – have you thought about a subscription to Mslexia magazine? Not only does every quarterly issue contain hundreds of these listings – courses, competitions, retreats and submission slots – but we'll also provide you with all the craft tools you need to take your writing to the next level and maximise your chances of success.  Sound good? Join our thriving community of women writers from just £19.99 a year here! Team M   Copyright © 2021 Mslexia Publications Ltd., All rights reserved.       One thing that never ceases to amaze us in this industry is just how fast your fortunes can turn around. Take the winner of last year's Mslexia Novel Competition, for example. Tricia Cresswell had been rejected by several literary agents prior to our 2020 Novel Competition, but her luck swiftly changed when she won our £5,000 top prize – and discovered agent representation was part of the package. ‘I’d submitted the novel to about ten agents before the competition, and been rejected by them all. So that was another big learning curve to navigate. The rejections were encouraging and polite, with some thoughtful comments, but they were still rejections! I’m used to having academic papers turned down, but it’s different when it’s your baby – more personal somehow. ‘But everything turned out for the best. Charlotte was the perfect agent for me, because she could see immediately where the book needed work – which were exactly the bits I was most unsure about. There was a paranormal strand that she thought was distracting from the other issues in the book, so we got rid of that. And the ending had confused the novel judges, so we made that a bit more explicit. ‘I signed with Charlotte in June, and we sold the book to Pan Macmillan a few months later. Everything happened so fast!' Charlotte, who was judging the competition, immediately wanted The Midwife to win. (Fellow judges novelist Louise Doughty and the BBC’s Nicola Holloway were in unanimous agreement.) ‘When it came to preparing the manuscript for submission, Tricia and I spent a lot of time talking about what the point of the book was and why she’d written it. It was a good way of getting to know Tricia, and identifying how to sharpen the focus of the novel. Although the context was women’s health – many woman died in childbirth in those days – we agreed that at its heart, it was an exploration of how difficult it was for women of all classes, rich and poor, to advance in society at that time. ‘I love the process of editing – though it's not really my job! It’s such a privilege to help an author bring out what’s exciting and unusual in a book. ‘Because I could see it had crossover appeal – a historical with reading group potential – I sent it out to about 20 different editors. In retrospect it was a terrible time to be pitching, because it was in the middle of the first lockdown. People were delaying publication and stockpiling manuscripts, they were working at home and overwhelmed by home-schooling, or on maternity leave, or using the opportunity to change jobs. So I got five bounce backs straight away from editors who’d moved on, and about five really regretful passes. ‘In the end, Caroline Hogg at Pan Macmillan read it in two or three great big gulps after a long period of not being excited by anything she was seeing – and persuaded me to take it off the table.’  And the rest was history! How would a whirlwind success story like Tricia's change your life?  This year's top prize is a big cheque for £5,000, and the winner and three finalists will also receive manuscript feedback from The Literary Consultancy, pitch training at a day-long professional workshop, and personal introductions to agents and editors at a Talent Party in central London.  You have to be in it to win it, as they say, and the deadline for our Novel Competition is 20 September. We only need your first 5,000 words in the first instance – we call in the full manuscripts of longlisted entrants in February 2022.  Good luck!     Enter now     READ MORE: THE MANTEL METHOD Dame Hilary Mantel, one of Jo's co-judges for this year's competition, lifts the lid on her utterly unique novel-writing process: 'Get up in the middle of the night to work on it, then go back to sleep and dream about it...' Full article     Copyright © 2021 Mslexia Publications Ltd., All rights reserved.     Copyright © 2021 Mslexia Publications Ltd., All rights reserved.