The City of Derby Short Story and Poetry Competition

2008 Writing Competition

Closing date May 31st 2008. This competition will be formally open for submissions from October 22nd 2007.

Prague....the city of a thousand spires Kyoto....the city of a thousand shrines Cairo....the city of a thousand minarets Derby....the city of a thousand dreams

Some early tips for our 2008 Competition:-

Don't post an entry at the last minute - the Royal Mail may go on strike again.

If you send your entry by post make sure you pay enough postage particularly on large packages or your work may not reach us.

Don't send your entry by email on the very last day - Servers can and do fail at the most inconvenient times.

If you wish to have an acknowledgement of receipt of your work we are happy to do this, preferably by email but, if not, by using the stamped addressed envelope you have sent us.

Most entrants to our competition are aware that it is a non-profit-making enterprise. No-one - apart from our judges of course - has at any stage received a penny from payments to the competition, with everything being put back into prize money, administration costs and judge's fees. We have increased the prize money next year to include a £500 top prize in both categories of poetry and short stories, and in order to be able to afford this there will be an increase in entry fees for 2008. Single entry fees will therefore be £4, with a cost of £3 for subsequent additional entries by the same writer. We hope that the increase doesn't cause potential entrants too much consternation. Most regular competition applicants will acknowledge, we hope, that £4 is still a very reasonable entry fee to pay for a competition of this nature.

Our 2008 short story judge is award-winning British Crime and Literary Fiction Author Alex Keegan. Alex is the creator of the five Caz Flood novels: Cuckoo (Headline Books, St. Martin's Press), Vulture, Kingfisher, Razorbill (Headline Books) and A WildJustice (Piatkus Books) which all feature feisty female private investigator Catherine "Caz" Flood. Cuckoo was published in the U.S. by St Martin’s Press, and was nominated for an Anthony Award as best first novel. His prize-winning short stories have been featured in Mystery and Manners, Blue Moon Review, Southern Ocean Review, The Atlantic and on BBC Radio 4. He has also served as a judge in numerous writing competitions. He is a Contributing Editor for The Internet Writing Journal and has a devoted online following of his no-nonsense, expert advice on all aspects of writing.

Our 2008 poetry judge is Paul Groves. Paul is an established and widely recognised poet, whose work has been acknowledged by his winning of numerous prizes, including the Times Literary Supplement Prize (twice), the Orbis International Prize, The Charterhouse Award, and the Bournemouth Festival Award. Four collections of his poetry have been published: Academe, Menage a Trois, Eros and Thanatos and Wowsers, and a fifth - Qwerty - is to appear shortly. He has worked for nearly twenty years as a lecturer in creative writing, and has given countless readings of his work, both live and on television and radio. His autobiography - Country Boy - has recently been published by Starborn Books.