Opportunities
Welcome to Literature Wales’ opportunities page where we share internal and external literary opportunities, from competitions to residencies, from Wales and beyond. If you have any opportunities you’d like us to feature, please email us on: post@literaturewales.org
Work Opportunities
Chapter Arts Centre: Head of Communications and Marketing – 1 May
The Head of Marketing and Communications works with the team to devise and implement marketing and communications strategies that expand Chapter’s audience development objectives. You’ll liaise closely with the programme team, and with teams across the organisation including IT, trading, community engagement, visitor services, fundraising and with our creative community. Salary: £34,000 per annum. Hours: 40 hours pro rata. Contract: full time, permanent. More information.
Wales Millennium Centre: Team Leader – 1 May
An exciting new opportunity to join a growing Food and Beverage team at WMC. Salary: £24,500. More information.
Film Hub Wales: Marketing and Outreach Officer – 8 May
The purpose of the role is o support the Hub and its members to develop audiences for British independent and world cinema across Wales through marketing and outreach activities. Salary: £26,353. Contract: June 2024 – 31 March 2026, with potential to extend, subject to confirmation of annual funding. Hours: 40 hours per week (TOIL). Location: Hybrid. One – two office days per week at Chapter in Cardiff, with the option for home-working. More information.
Call-outs
Arts Council Wales: Creative Steps – 30 April (Last day of each month)
The aim of this programme is to support individuals and organisations who have experienced barriers to accessing our funding. Creative Steps aims to address this by supporting artists, creatives, and organisations throughout their developmental journey.
You can apply for the Individual strand if you are an artist or creative who identifies as being ethnically and culturally diverse, as Deaf, disabled and/or neurodivergent, or as someone who has experienced racism or discrimination.
You can apply for the Organisations strand if your organisation is led by ethnically and culturally diverse people, Deaf, disabled and/or neurodivergent people, or people who have experienced racism or discrimination.
This will be a rolling programme, with applications accepted on the last day of each month. Click here for further information.
Black Bee Call for Submissions – Rolling
Black Bee Books is currently open for submissions from under-represented voices in Wales. As a new publishing house based in West Wales, the company want to be reflective of a wide variety of experiences and are actively seeking those who are under-served by the industry.
They are looking to publish both adult and young adult fiction and non-fiction, but not children’s books.
For submission guidelines please see: www.blackbeebooks.wales/contact
Hack Publishing – Rolling
Hack Publishing are looking for 10 writers to join us an exciting project that will explore work now and imagine working culture in the future. This will be a collection of essays with 10 different perspectives, although writers are encouraged to experiment with genre.
In addition, they are also looking for writers to contribute to their upcoming magazine. The first issue’s theme is: resilience. Writers can submit any genre of up to 3,500 words. It is a chance for new writers to see their work published alongside one another.
Find the full details on their website.
2024 RSL International Writers Programme – 3 May
This is the RSL’s new flagship programme to celebrate literary excellence in the global writing community and the power of literature to transcend borders. Recommendations will be reviewed by the following panel – Kit Fan (Chair), Moniza Alvi, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Chloe Aridjis, Homi K. Bhabha, Margaret Busby, Maureen Freely, Deirdre Osborne and Nathalie Teitler.
To be eligible, recommended writers must:
- not be resident in, or citizens of, the UK; and
- have published two substantial works of outstanding literary merit (where works are translated into English, or originally written in English).
Well Projects 2024 Open Call for New Writing: Resurrection Charms – 29 May
Well Projects produces a yearly anthology book that explores ecology through a broad range of contributions including (but not limited to) academic or visual essays, fiction, poetry and interviews.
This year, Well Projects are opening up the anthology to submissions. Selected applicants will receive a fee of £300.00 and support whilst writing their texts which will be published later this year. Well Projects invites proposals for texts that engage with ecology in relation to – resurrection, time travel, rewilding, restoration, science fiction, intersectionality, ghosts, hauntings and histories. Full details.
Genesis Emerging Writers’ Programme – 31 May
The annual Genesis Emerging Writers’ Programme covers fiction, non-fiction and poetry and includes bursaries, mentoring, peer support and an event at London’s longest-running literary festival. The programme is open to emerging writers over 18 years of age and living in the UK with no more than three years’ experience of being published, who feel they would benefit from the support and insight of a more established writer. The Programme runs from 1 June 2024 to 1 April 2025. More details.
Broken Sleep Books: Submissions for Poetry Collections – 31 May
Submissions are open for full-length poetry collections (40+ pages). All submissions considered, regardless of location. Collaborative submissions are considered. Full details & guidelines.
Competitions
Eisteddfodau Cymru – Ongoing
There are several literary competitions held by various Eisteddfod events across Wales annually.
All the closing dates can be found here. For further information, visit the Cymdeithas Eisteddfodau Cymru website.
Fern Academy Prize – 30 April
Fern Press and How To Academy are delighted to launch the inaugural Fern Academy Prize, in association with Tortoise Media – a new annual non-fiction essay prize for those working at the frontier of creativity and thought.
The prize is designed to find and nurture emerging non-fiction talent and will be awarded to an essay of literary merit with an international and multicultural interest. The prize encourages essays that shine a light on the universal human experience – on a micro or macro scale – and which speak clearly to the times we live in. The prize is open to unagented and unpublished writers from around the world, writing in the English language.
The winning writer will receive:
- £3,000 cash prize;
- publication with Tortoise Media;
- literary representation by RCW literary agent Laurence Laluyaux;
- a five-night writing course* run by How To Academy’s sister company, Unmissable Courses;
- an appearance on How To Academy’s biweekly podcast; and
- mentorship from a Penguin Random House UK editor.
Essays should be 3,000–6,000 words in length. The prize is open to all writers who have not been published by a trade book publisher, including those who have to date only published academic papers and in other media such as magazines, newspapers and online. More information and how to enter.
Cathays Brass Anniversary Commission: Lyric Competition – 16 May
In October 2024 Cathays Brass will be celebrating 10 years of positive community music activity. The group have seen great development across these 10 years, with the ensemble building membership and stature through offering an appealing social
environment where players can share musical experiences with others. To celebrate the occasion, they are commissioning composer Michael Triggs to write a work for Brass Band which features a section that can be performed with a choir/vocalist. This is where we need your help!
They’ve asked their members what Cathays Brass means to them and created a Word Cloud to display the answers. They’d like this to be the basis for the lyrics used in this project. The lyrics must include English & Welsh words, however how these appear is at your discretion. For example, direct translations, separate verse & chorus writing, alternative lines may all be considered. Submissions must include 12-24 lines, inclusive of repetitions. Full details and submission form.
To celebrate the 70th Anniversary of the Swansea & District Writers Circle (SDWC), they are awarding a cash prize of £200 to the best short story and poem on the theme of ‘Anniversary’ entered into our competition.
The contest is open to all writers over 16 years of age, anywhere in the world, writing in English. You can submit up to three entries in total across the two categories. The winning entries, 2 runners up and highly commended entries in each category will be published in our Anniversary Anthology, to be released in November 2024. More information.
First Prize £5,000. Second Prize £2,000. Third Prize £1,000. Plus publication in Poetry London.
Entry fee: Poetry London subscribers £5 per poem / non-subscribers £10 per poem (Limited number of free entries for writers from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds)
Judge: Hannah Sullivan. More information.
The 2024 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize – 1 July
The prize supports writers who have not yet published a book-length work, with no limits on age, gender, nationality, or background. The winners of each category (Fiction, Life Writing and Poetry) will receive a £1,000 cash prize and will be published in Wasafiri’s print magazine. Learn more, and submit.
CRIME CYMRU First Novel Prize – 3 September
Calling all budding crime writers in Wales! The Welsh crime writers’ collective, Crime Cymru, is offering an opportunity to show off your writing and reach a new level in your writing career.
To enter, you’ll need the first 5,000 words of a crime novel and a one-page synopsis outlining the full plot. You don’t need to have written the whole book at the time of submission. What is essential is that you haven’t already published a novel prior to entering (either via traditional means or self-publishing). However, if you’ve previously published a collection of stories, a book of poems or a work of non-fiction, you are eligible to enter.
Shortlisted authors will be invited to a prize giving ceremony at the Gŵyl CRIME CYMRU Festival in Aberystwyth in April 2025, where the winner will be announced. The winning entrant will receive a mentoring package from a successful crime writer worth £1000, and the two other shortlisted authors will receive a bundle of Crime Cymru authors’ books. All shortlisted authors will also receive two free weekend passes to Gŵyl CRIME CYMRU Festival which will offer the opportunity to meet a wealth of the UK’s top crime writers and industry professionals. Full details.