THRESHOLDS 2013 Feature Writing Competition

I received this by email from the Folklore mailing list I'm registered on. It coincided with me reading Kate Bernheimer's wonderful introduction to My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me, an anthology of fairy tales from both established and new writers. You can read an extract from it here. In it she mentions the controversy that her suggestion of engaging with fairy tales caused at a writers conference and how, despite the obvious popularity and quality of such writing, 'collections and/or retellings of folk-tales, myths, and fairy-tales are not eligible' for the National Book Awards. If fact, she started a petition to change this, which you can read about here and here. And you can find out if it worked here. 

Anyway, my point is that there is a new writing competition open, and all the details are below. So, what are you waiting for? Go write some fairy tales...

THRESHOLDS – the International Short Story Forum – is now welcoming entries to the 2013 Feature Writing Competition.

We would like to invite you, your colleagues and your students to enter the THRESHOLDS Feature Writing Competition, as we search for the best essays on the short story form from around the world.

The Competition is free to enter, and this year we have two categories of entry – Author Profiles and We Recommend – with a £500 first prize and a £100 runner-up prize for each category. Essays for Author Profiles should explore the life, work and influence of a single short story writer, while We Recommend essays should be personal recommendations of a collection, anthology, group of short stories or single short story.

The judges hope to see a range of styles and approaches in the Competition entries. They will be looking, above all, at the quality of the prose in each feature submitted, the insights offered, and the author’s ability to engage his/her readers. The Competition closes on 27 March 2013, midnight GMT. Full details and Competition rules are available on The Forum.

On THRESHOLDS, you will find a wealth of short story resources – from discussion features, to writing exercises, worldwide competition and Submission Deadlines, a Calendar of Events, Funding Sources, Writers’ Retreats, Short Story News, Audio Treats, Author Interviews, specially commissioned Stories from highly acclaimed authors, and so much more. Plus, it’s free to register on The Forum – giving you full access to all our resources.

You can also follow us on Twitter @ShortStoryForum, and on the THRESHOLDS Facebook page – where we regularly post short story news, discussion and competition deadlines.

Register now and join the conversation. We hope to meet you there!