The BBC National Short Story Award is one of the world’s most prestigious for a single short story with the winning author receiving £15,000, the runner up £3,000 and three further authors £500 each. Broadcaster Martha Kearney will chair the panel of judges for 2008, which also include Alexander Linklater, one of the award’s founders (Prospect Magazine), Booker Prize winner Penelope Lively and Di Speirs (BBC Radio 4). The shortlist will be announced in June 2008, with the five stories broadcast on BBC Radio 4 each weekday before the winner …

In a new project launched by English PEN and MRC, writers and scientists are joining up online to chat about science and inspire the next wave of science-related fiction. Scientists are sharing their knowledge and experience with fiction writers, with details of their day-to-day activities, what kind of environment they work in, who they work with and what they are trying to find out.
If you are including science in your writing for whatever reason; because the characters in your novel are scientists or you are writing about scientific topics, then you can be inspired and check the facts …

The Masala Trois Collective enthusiastically invites submissions – short fiction and verse – for their upcoming collection of South Asian children’s stories, Adventures in Desiland. Like all well crafted children’s stories, across eras and traditions, they hope the stories in Adventures in Desiland will engage and delight adults and children alike.
Submission may include retelling ancient tales, such as those found in the Panchatantra, using contemporary dialogue and idiom. Similarly, submissions that creatively “Indianize” or desify well known western children’s stories would fit nicely in the collection (there’s plenty of room for …

Peshkar are launching a new writing programme. It’s all about the young, British Asian experience. All you need is  a desire to express yourself through writing for the stage. Its all about finding new voices and making sure you are heard.Weekly workshops will be running every Tuesday at the Gallery from October 30th to December 11th. They’ll be covering how to create characters, storylines and dialogue under the guidance of experienced theatre writers. All this will lead up to the chance for you to see your work performed in a showcase …

Dina Begum is an East London based writer and poet currently working on her first novel Six Yards of River as well as writing short stories for Creative Week Newspaper.
Why should she feel as though she is living in somebody else’s house? It was hers by right. She had been the one to marry him and move with him to a house that resembled a hotel after all. The rooms do not feel as though they belong to her somehow, pale washes of blue and yellow wall intermittently admonishing her …

Loughborough based Charnwood Arts Kala Kahani project is inviting writers to join its New Writers Programme which runs as a set of workshop in Leicester.
Workshop leaders in the past have included Shamshad Khan, Daljit Nagra and Rani Moorthy. If you are looking to develop your writing in the comfort of a writer’s circle then attending these informal and fun creative sessions will be a fantastic way to be inspired and discipline your writing time!
Anyone who is interested should contact Rebecca Abrahams in the first instance and submit an application of their work with a …

The Curry Mile is a warm novel which follows the story of daddy’s girl, Sorayah Butt. When her dream life in London ends in heartache she returns home to Manchester. When the family business threatens to belly up without her intervention, Sorayah is forced into a dilemma: should she rescue the business or should she leave her dad to face the consequences? A deftly written novel that depicts the experiences of migrant communities living in the UK today. 
When you were writing The Curry Mile, did you have a reader in mind?
I …