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.
Courses and Workshops
I am some BODY – 27 July
“I am some BODY” is a body awareness and well-being writing project that focuses on body understanding and appreciation of its functioning and processes occurring during the well-being crisis. This project is partnership between Literature Wales, Royal College of Psychiatrists, Congolese Development Project and Dominika Rau and Body Art Therapies.
Discover more and register here.
Career out of Joy Workshop – 24 July
Grace Quantock (@Grace_Quantock), who received a recent Literature Wales Writer Commission, is leading a free workshop on trauma informed creative writing.
For further information, and to register, visit her website.
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
Magma Poetry – 31 July
The 82nd issue of Magma Poetry, edited by Nick Makoha and Gboyega Odubanjo, is in partnership with the Obsidian Foundation and will focus on Black poets.
They welcome poems from writers of Black African, Caribbean, Afro-Latinx, and African-American heritage, including those of mixed-Black heritage. These poems must not have been previously published, either in print or online.
Discover more and apply here.
The Other Side of Hope – 31 July
The Other Side of Hope are calling for submissions of fiction and poetry of any theme, refugees and immigrants.
There is a pay of £100 per published author for the print issue, and £50 for the online issue.
There are further details here.
Programme in Residence for Literary Mediators in Ljubljana/Slovenia 2021 – 8 August
The residency programme in 2021 is addressed to foreign literary mediators, i.e. literary translators, who have completed their training and have published at least two literary translations (students are not eligible), or publishers, who have published and promoted at least one literary translation, or literary agents, who have signed with a publishing house at least one contract for a translation of Slovenian literature and humanities. Translators are only eligible if they translate Slovenian literature into a foreign language.
There are further details here.
Lucent Dreaming – 8 August
We will be open for issue 10 submissions from new and emerging writers between June 1st 2021 – August 8th 2021. You must be a Lucent Dreaming subscriber, or have read a recent issue to submit work to the magazine. This will help you get a feel for the kind of writing we enjoy and give you the best chance.
We exist to platform new and emerging writers. We consider a new/emerging writer someone who has been published in 10 or fewer publications in the past 5 years, and has not published a book or full collection. If you have published more prolifically, or are established, we ask that you do not submit work to us and instead share our call-out with new writers.
The full details can be found here.
Big Welsh Rhyme Time Commissions 2022 – 1 October
Book Trust Cymru are inviting authors, poets, writers, musicians and performers to help create some special new content for the Big Welsh Rhyme Time 2022. They are offering up to three commissions of £600 each.
The full details can be found here.
Writing in Practice: Call for Submissions for Volume 8 – 11 October
NAWE are seeking articles that explore the nature of the art of writing, highlighting current academic thinking and practice, and reflecting on this with an international outlook. Writing in Practice encourages the investigation of a broad range of approaches to practice research, focusing on critical discussion of creative process, and critical examination of research contexts, and Creative Writing’s history and pedagogy. Creative Writing itself is welcomed when integral to an article. Writing in Practice is an open access, peer-reviewed online journal.
Submissions should be 4-10,000 words long and include an abstract of up to 200 words. A biographical note of up to 200 words should be provided in a separate document.
There are further details here.
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
Stephen Spender Prize – 16 July
The Stephen Spender annual prize for poetry in translation is now open for entries.
The Prize is an annual competition for poetry in translation, with categories for young people (14-and-under, 16-and-under, and 18-and-under) as well as an open category for adults. All entrants must be UK or Irish citizens or residents, or pupils at a British School overseas.
The full details are available here.
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.
Adventures in Fiction New Voices Competition – 14 September
Have you got a winning idea? Have you recently embarked on writing a novel? Like some support in the early stages? New Voices Competition is aimed at writers who have completed at least fifty pages of their manuscript.
The winning prize is a Start-Up mentoring package worth more than £550.00, including a a manuscript appraisal, guidelines, a development strategy, a consultation and an agreed deadline for a year later.
For full details, click 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.