The Mslexia Women’s Short Story Competition 2011 is now open for entries.
Short stories of up to 2,200 are welcome on any topic or theme.
Closing date: 24 January 2011
Full details at http://www.mslexia.co.uk

The world’s largest literary award for young writers, Dylan Thomas Prize has teamed up with Sony UK to offer a new award in this year’s competition.
The Sony Reader Award will be awarded to a British novel writer under the age of 30. The process of submission, judging to publishing will be undertaken electronically and the winning entry will be made available as an e-book.
Closing date: 31st August 2010
Visit http://www.thedylanthomasprize.com/

Unpublished women writers are being invited to submit their short stories to the biennial prize, The Asham Award.
For the first time, the award has a set theme: Ghost or Gothic? and twelve winning entries will be published by Virago, alongside new writing by some of the UK’s best known women writers.
The award is open to women who have not previously published a novel or collection of short stories. Entries must not exceed 4000 words.
Closing date: 30 September, 2010
Visit http://www.ashamaward.com/

In exactly 12 weeks The Asian Writer turns three and to celebrate we’ve got an exciting project up our sleeves.
We’re taking the best content and turning it into a collection – that any book lover will treasure. We want you to choose your best bits and pieces, quotes and favourite  books to go in the collection.
That’s not all.
The Asian Writer is inviting writers to contribute new writing on the theme ‘Celebration’ for a collection.
We’re happy for you to flaunt your talent and send us your poems, haikus, short stories, flash …

Tindal Street Press is excited to announce that submissions are now open
for a new anthology of British Asian writing.
Working title Asian Enough? is an anthology of short stories, to be edited
by Tindal Street author Kavita Bhanot, which will be published in October
2011. Kavita says of the project: “This won’t be just a disparate
collection of literary stories by writers who happen to be British and
Asian – this collection is a recognition that writers are not isolated
individuals, that we share something in common, whether it is influence,
experience, or the expectations of others.
“The …

There are many good creative writing classes and writers retreats but at London Writers’ Club we wanted a modern, time-effective solution to helping people learn the craft.
We thought: wouldn’t it be fab if we could give budding writers access to first-rate publishing industry advice without leaving their homes. Learning from the sofa. How noughties can you get.
We decided that a teleconferenced series of classes with the opportunity to ask questions of the experts was the way to go.
And so Make Your Novel a Reality in 2010 was born.
Over four-weeks, this Monday evening …

Writing Industries Conference 2010
Saturday 6th March 2010, Loughborough University
A Literature Network, Writing East Midlands
and Loughborough University project.
http://writingindustries.com
Twitter #wic2010
The Writing Industries Conference brings together writers from across the East Midlands and beyond with professionals from the writing industries to share knowledge, develop skills and make new contacts. The conference is open to anyone with an interest in writing, from unpublished writers who want to learn more to bestselling novelists.
The full programme for WIC 2010 is available online here:
http://writingindustries.com/programme/
A theme of this year’s conference is the many changes taking place in the writing industries. …

For the fourth year running the Muslim Writers Awards is calling out for submissions from writers across the country.
All entrants must be Muslim and work should be submitted in the English Language. Submissions do not need to be centred on topics of Islam or Muslim identity, however this is equally welcome.
There many categories including short story, children’s fiction and poetry. screenplay category accepts short films, feature-length scripts, and TV episodes. There is also an under 16 Young Muslim Awards running this year.
To find out more visit their website here.

BritWriters Awards 2010 is a new writing competition to celebrate the UK’s next writing star.
The Brit Writers’ Awards Unpublished 2010 are looking for the UK’s best undiscovered writers – people like you, who create stories, poems or songs that deserve to be shared.
You might have been writing all your life… or maybe writing is a new interest for you. Perhaps you’ve never written seriously before, but you’ve always enjoyed telling stories. You might not even know that there is “a book in there somewhere”.
Whether you’re eight or 108, it’s possible …

They say there’s a book inside every one of us…
The BBC is inviting the whole country to share their untold real life stories with the hope of finding that book. The My Story website is asking the public to submit their true untold real life stories in 300 to 1,500 words. Up to 15 of the most compelling storytellers will get the chance to appear in a major TV series on BBC One in 2010. There will also be the chance for five of the storytellers to have their book …