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
Due to the current situation in Wales regarding the Coronavirus, we suggest that anyone interested in taking part contacts the organisers directly for the most up-to-date information.
Funding Opportunities
The Authors’ Emergency Fund – Rolling
Applications are open to all professional authors who are resident in the UK or British subjects – including all types of writers, illustrators, literary translators, scriptwriters, poets, journalists and others – for whom author-related activities make up a substantial amount of their annual income.
For further information, click here.
The White Pube Writers Grants – Rolling Monthly
The White Pube Writers Grant is £500 given out monthly to a working class writer based in the UK. This grant has been set up to support writers of all ages who are early in their careers and would benefit from this no-strings attached financial support to help them in whatever they like – be that money to cover time to write, books, web hosting, printing, subscriptions, research, development, travel, or even just money to fund life expenses and rent.
For further information, click here.
The Royal Literary Fund – Rolling
To be eligible, you need to have had 2 works published (or scripts/ plays performed) commercially. Whether it’s money or personal problems that are preventing you from writing, our panel will review your case in confidence to see if we can offer financial support.
Further information available here.
Call-outs
When Women Write – 14 May
This project is designed for young women (aged 16-24) from Wales and Zimbabwe who enjoy writing. Participants will attend ten free creative writing workshops online over the summer and have a chance to publish and perform their work.
Whether you scribble poems in your notebook, make up characters in your spare time, write short stories about your life or imagine new and better worlds, this project is for you!
If you are from one of the following areas in Wales then you are eligible to take part: Bridgend, Caerphilly, Cardiff (Splott or Ely), Denbighshire (Rhyl), Newport, Merthyr Tydfil, Rhondda Cynon Taf, or Wrexham.
Further details, including how to submit, are available here.
Call-out for Applications: Paid opportunity for Writers – 24 May
Literature Wales are inviting applications for a new project with year 6 pupils in Rhondda Cynon Taf, funded by the Rhys Davies Trust and supported by Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council. There is an opportunity for both a Lead Creative Practitioner / Writer and a Paid Shadowing Opportunity.
All the details are available here on our website.
Cipher Press Call for Submissions – 31 May
Queer indie publisher Cipher Press have opened up submissions for trans and gender non-conforming writers, writers of colour, and working-class writers who identify as LGBTQI+.
Full submission guidelines here: https://www.cipherpress.co.uk/submissions
Ffolio – 1 June
In the latest round of Ffolio, they are once again looking for short film projects between 90 seconds and 5 minutes long. The idea should push the boundaries of film, whether that be through story or experimentation with sound, image or structure. It might include animation, documentary, scripted drama or performance. It should be achievable within a production budget of £5,000.
If shortlisted, you’ll receive training, bespoke support to develop your short film ideas, and bursaries for costs such as travel, childcare or an interpreter.
The details can be found here.
Madeleine Milburn Mentorship Programme – 1 July
Madeleine Milburn Literary, TV & Film Agency is running a 6-month mentorship programme for the second year running for unpublished novelists and non-fiction writers worldwide. The programme will include a comprehensive introduction to how publishing works, editorial work on the author’s manuscript and guaranteed representation from an MM Agent during and after the mentorship period. This year, they’re offering eight places and at least four of them are reserved for writers underrepresented on bookshelves.
You can read about it in more detail and find out how to apply here.
Imagining History: Wales in Fiction and Fact – 1 July
The conference organisers invite contributions on any topic relating to imagining the histories of Wales. Contributions are encouraged from across disciplines, historical periods, and methodological approaches. Topics might include, but are by no means limited to:
- historical fiction and the ‘imagined nation’
- local/global histories
- race/gender/class and imagined histories
- imagining alternative histories
- historical film/television
- preserving the past
- museums/archives and historical fiction/film
- language and imagined histories
Abstracts of 250 words for twenty-minute papers plus a brief biography (two sentences) should be submitted to diana.wallace@southwales.ac.uk by 1 July 2021.
Black Bee Call for Submissions
Newly launched 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.
We 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
PoArtMo Anthology – 31 December
The PoArtMo Anthology (Volume 2) celebrates the most positive / inspirational art created in 2019-2021. The submissions can be in the form of six word stories, essays, flash fiction, short stories, photography, paintings, drawings, and poetry, and anyone over 17 years old can submit.
The full details are available here.
Written in a Flash Anthology – 31 December
Written in a Flash Anthology: A Collection of Positive Stories is a new project that seeks to highlight the most inspirational / positive short stories and flash fiction pieces created in 2019-2021. Submissions can be of any genre: thriller, mystery, fantasy, science-fiction, historical fiction, contemporary fiction, young adult, humor, and nonfiction.
The full details can be found here.
Competitions
2021 Bristol Short Story Prize – 5 May
The 2021 Bristol Short Story Prize is open for entries and is open to all writers around the world whether published or unpublished. 20 stories will be shortlisted and published in Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology Volume 14. The winner and 2 runners up will be selected from the shortlist and announced at an awards ceremony in October 2021. 1st prize is £1,000, 2nd prize is £500, 3rd prize is £250. 17 further prizes of £100 will be presented to the remaining shortlisted writers.
Discover more here.
Gwobr Esyllt Prize 2021 – 15 May
The Gwobr Esyllt Prize supports a woman storyteller from Wales to develop her craft. The prize includes the opportunity to develop a new work to be performed for the Beyond the Border Storytelling Festival in 2023. Value: £2,000.
Full details, including on how to enter, can be found here.
Creative Future Writers’ Award – 6 June
Are you an underrepresented writer with a great idea for a short story or poem on the theme of ESSENTIAL? The Creative Future Writers’ Award 2021 is open for entries and is free to enter. Submit your best poetry or short fiction. There’s over £10k worth of cash and professional development prizes available.
Full details, including how to apply can be found at: https://www.creativefuture.org.uk/for-writers/creative-future-writers-award/how-to-enter/
Welsh Poetry Competition 2021 – 6 June
This contest is now open and accepting entries. The top three will receive cash prizes, winners will be announced in July and the top 20 will be published in the 3rd anthology in the autumn. The judge for 2021 will be award-winning poet Kathy Miles.
Entry forms and all other details are available on the Welsh Poetry website.
Canterbury Festival Poet of the Year Competition – 11 June
Whether you have been writing for many years or have only recently been inspired to versify – this compeition is suitable for you. A longlistwill be announced later in the year and published in an anthology. From this list a shortlist will be drawn with the selected poets invited to read their work at the Awards Evening, taking place on National Poetry Day, 7 October. The winner, announced at the Awards, will become the Poet of the Year 2021.
The full details can be found here.
New Welsh Women’s Crime Anthology call out for submissions – 30 June
Whether you’re a published author or a debutante, Crime Cymru and Honno want to hear from you. Katherine Stansfield and Caroline Oakley, editors of a new anthology to be published in 2022 are looking for gripping stories that are complex and convincing, chilling or comforting and with a crime or a mystery at their heart, from the most diverse possible selection of Welsh women writers. Submissions are open to stories featuring ‘traditional’ crime fiction elements of detectives and police as well as amateur sleuths.
Submissions should be between 1500 and 5000 words in length and previously unpublished.
Full submission guidelines here:
New Welsh Women’s Crime Anthology – Call for Submissions
SaveAs Writers’ International Writing Competition 2021 – 31 August
2021 marks the centenary of T S Eliot’s visit to Margate, where he wrote part of The Waste Land while looking out on the sea from the Nayland Rock shelter.
To celebrate Eliot, his work and the views from our coastline, SaveAs Writers launch their annual international creative writing competition, this year asking for poems and short stories on the theme of Horizons. The theme can be literal, figurative, a celebration
of views, a reflection on Eliot and his work (The Waste Land itself opened new horizons in poetry) or a broader take on the theme.
Full details can be found here.
Crime Cymru First Novel Prize – 3 September
The Gwobr Nofel Gyntaf Crime Cymru First Novel Prize has been created to promote new crime writing talent from Wales. The prize has two categories: Welsh language entries and English language entries. For each category there are separate judges and individual prizes. There will be a Welsh-language winner and an English-language winner.
Each winner will receive a four-night stay at a date to be agreed at Literature Wales’ Nant Writers’ Retreat Cottage, located within the grounds of Tŷ Newydd Writing Centre in Llanystumdwy, Gwynedd. The two winning writers will also be offered mentoring from Crime Cymru writers, to be undertaken in their choice of Welsh or English.
Full details are available here.
Anthology Poetry Award – 31 October
Entries are now invited for the Anthology Poetry Award. Established to recognise and encourage excellence in the craft of poetry writing and to provide a platform for publication, it is open to original and previously unpublished poems in the English language. Entries are invited from poets of all nationalities, living anywhere in the world. Poems submitted must be on the theme of ‘Freedom’ and should not exceed 40 lines.
Full details are available here.