OPPORTUNITIES FOR SQUAD MEMBERS

Websites, Publications and Newsletters:

Sign up to The Dog and Arrow

The Dog and Arrow is a monthly newsletter from Bloomsbury giving you the lowdown on their new children's books, the chance to win titles, and keep you updated on all the news, views and reviews. Email ian.lamb@bloomsbury.com  to be put on the mailing list.
 

Dragontongue: new blog launched
for Welsh Children's Writers

Dragontongue, the group for Welsh children's writers, have set up a bilingual blog which will be active from 25 June. The blog will share ideas about the business and craft of writing, with weekly posts from contributors on writing and Wales.

Contributors Elen Caldecott, Paul Manship, Frances Thomas and David Thorpe are all published children's authors who either live in Wales or who are originally from Wales.

Click here to visit the blog and to leave comments.

Young Writer Magazine:
The magazine for young people with something to say

The Young Writer Magazine are looking for writing from young people to feature in their magazine and on their website.
They are looking for anything you want to say, prose or poetry, fiction or non-fiction. Just make sure it is your own unaided work, write it as well as you can and send it to us.

Let us have your name, your age and your address. We do not pass these on to anyone else.
You can send it to us by email or post. Remember, whenever you send your writing off to any publisher, make sure you keep a copy for yourself in case it gets lost in transit.

Email word documents (under 600 words in length, please!) to youngwriter@writersnews.co.uk

For further information on how to submit work, visit the Young Writer website.

Creative Writing Competitions and Projects:

247 Tales:
Loving Fiction twenty-four-seven

247 Tales is the online writing competition that challenges you to write short stories using 247 words or fewer.
This month’s theme is THE SECRET ROOM and the prize for the winning story is £75 worth of Bloomsbury Children’s books plus a framed copy of your winning story.

The winning story will appear on the home page of the 247 Tales website and ten runners-up will receive signed copies of the guest author’s latest book and their stories will appear on the website as well. You can read the prologue of the guest author’s latest book in the website's downloads section as well as finding out the themes and authors for all the stories this year.

For full details about the competition and how to enter please click here.

Closing date: Wednesday 28 July 2010
 

The Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award
Final countdown to the UK’s most popular poetry prize for young people

 "Becoming a Foyle Young Poet is about more than just winning a competition. It is like being given the keys to doors you didn't know existed - suddenly there are clear directions you can take your poetry in. Entry is free and can be done instantly online - what are you waiting for? Let your poem be heard!" Phoebe Power, Foyle Young Poet of the Year 2009

If you are 11-17 years of age, the Poetry Society’s Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award opens up exciting opportunities for your writing to be recognized and given the chance to flourish.

Since it began 13 years ago the award has identified some of the most exciting new voices in contemporary poetry. These include Caroline Bird, who after winning the award had her first collection of poetry published aged just 16, Jay Bernard whose first collections Your Sign is Cuckoo girl was published in 2008, and Richard O’Brien who set up the highly successful e-zine Pomegranate with other young writers. Many past winners can also be seen performing their work at festivals across the UK such as Latitude and the Big Chill.

It doesn’t just acknowledge this new talent - it provides an opportunity for this talent to flourish.
There are two prizes available for the fifteen overall winners.
The 14-17 year olds get the chance to attend a week long residential course at The Hurst in Shropshire, one of the prestigious Arvon Centres, where they will be tutored by this year’s judges Jane Draycott and Luke Kennard.
The younger age range winners (11-14 year olds) will receive a visit to their school from a professional poet, followed by distance mentoring. The Award also incorprates a year-round programme of activity aimed at encouraging creativity and literacy in schools, providing poet-led residencies, mentoring and a range of free resources including lesson plans and poetry book sets. It also champions and celebrates committed schools and teachers across the UK.

Whatever happens, don’t let uncertainty stop you entering that poem! What are you waiting for? Sending in a poem may be your first step toward becoming one of our great poets of the future.

Enter online or download an entry form at www.foyleyoungpoets.org or you can request an entry form by emailing fyp@poetrysociety.org.uk.

Closing date: 31 July 2010

The Wicked Young Writers' Award

The Wicked Young Writers' Award has been established to recognise excellence in writing, encourage creativity and help develop writing talent in young people. Any young person between the ages of 5 and 25 years old is eligible to enter, making the award the first of its kind to reward excellence to such a wide age-range of young people across the whole of the UK.

The Wicked Young Writers' Award is completely free and is all about what young people want to write; entries can range from stories, to poems, to drama and if the Young Writer is feeling particularly creative they can even include illustrations (judging will be based on writing only). Entries must be typewritten and no longer than 750 words.

To enter the Wicked Young Writers' Award, find out what the prizes are and for more information, please click here.

Closing date: Saturday 31 July 2010

Leaf Books
Postcard and Short Travel Writing Competition

Visiting new places can be very inspiring for writers. Leaf Books invites you to submit a short piece of Travel Writing (up to 300 words) or a postcard written from an interesting destination - real or imaginary. Your writing can be a journalistic piece, a diary entry or a piece of micro-fiction – as long as your piece evokes a clear sense of place then you’re welcome to use a form of your choice.

Winning and outstanding entries will be published in the Leaf Writers’ Magazine. These, and further commended entries, will also be published on the Leaf Books showcase site.

First prize: Winner receives £150 and a free copy of the Leaf Writers’ Magazine.
Further published entrants will receive a free copy of the Leaf Writers’ Magazine.

To enter: £3 per entry, 4 entries for £10.
You can enter online or by post: for further information and to enter, please click here.

Closing Date: 31 August 2010

Micro-Fiction Competition

Leaf Books invites you to submit micro-fiction (max 300 words) on any subject imaginable.

Winning and outstanding entries will be published in the Leaf Writers’ Magazine. These, and further commended entries, will also be published in an anthology.

First prize: Winner receives £150 and a free copy of the Leaf Writers’ Magazine and the anthology. One runner up will receive a free copy of the magazine/anthology.
Further successful entrants published in the magazine will get a free copy, and commended authors for the anthology will be able to pre-order the book at a reduced rate.

To enter: £3 per entry, 4 entries for £10
You can enter online or by post: for further information and to enter, please click here.

Closing date: 30 September 2010 

Tiny Weeny Writing and Drawing Competition

Back by popular demand (we enjoyed it anyway) the tiniest of our competitions.
We invite you to send us EITHER writing that is no longer than 140 characters, which includes letters, spaces and punctuation, (not the title but please don’t make those more than 30 characters) OR a piece of black and white art no bigger than half a post card. Obviously you can send both, but as separate entries.
You can use any form - a petit poem, a short short short story, a playlet, your best ever tweet, anything you like. For the drawings please can we have black and white and if you send them online as a jpeg or a gif.

Prizes: The best of the pieces will be published in the Leaf Writers’ Magazine and the very best single piece will win £75.00 and a free years subscription to the Magazine.

Last time the winners went up on the Showcase site – have a look at these great entries for ideas and inspiration.
Entry Fees: £2 per submission, 6 pieces for £10.
Enter online or by post: for further information or to enter, please click here

Closing date: 31 October 2010

National Novel Writing Month:
NaNoWriMo’s Young Writers’ Programme

National Novel Writing Month happens every November! The challenge is to write an entire novel in just 30 days. That means participants begin writing November 1 and must finish by midnight, November 30. The word-count goal for our adult program is 50,000 words, but our Young Writers Program allows participants who are 17 years old and younger to set reasonable, yet challenging, word-count goals.
The only thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The high-velocity approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly. For 30 days, you get to lock that inner editor in the basement, let your imagination take over, and just create!

As you spend November writing, you can draw comfort from the fact that, all around the world, other National Novel Writing Month participants of all ages are going through the same joys and sorrows of producing the Great Frantic Novel.

You should sign up on the Young Writers Program site if you are:
• 17 years old or younger participating on your own.
• In a K-12 teacher-lead class that is participating in NaNoWriMo.
• An educator facilitating NaNoWriMo in your classroom.

If you are 13 or older you can sign up on the main site at www.nanowrimo.org. Just know that you will have to write 50,000 words since the adult site doesn't allow you to set your own word-count goal.

Click here to visit the NaNoWriMo Young Writers' website, and to take part!

Young Writers’ Ghost Story Competition (ongoing)

Ghost stories - we've all heard them and we've all been scared by them at one time or another. They can be terribly scary or simply funny, but either way they have been an attention-grabbing form of storytelling for centuries and leave people wondering whether what they've heard is fact or fiction!

This is an open competition, we continually edit entries - producing several anthologies throughout the year.  All successful stories will be published in a book alongside other spooky tales from budding storytellers! Any ghost stories selected for publication will receive a limited edition spooky bookmark.

An overall winner in each publication will win a fabulous family ticket to either the Edinburgh,London or York Dungeons and two runners-up will each receive a superb reading and writing goodie bag which will include a selection of books and a Staedtler writing set!

Ghost stories can be a maximum of 250 words.
Make sure each ghost story is accompanied by your details (full name, postal address and age) using the downloadable form.
Entries can be typed or handwritten and should be on A4 paper.

Click here to visit the Young Writers’ Website
for more information about their competitions, and to download an entry form.