03 October, 2023
Opportunities and Competitions October 2023
Photo credit: Tyrone Guthrie Centre (Sunset over Annaghmakerrig Lake)
Each month we update our Competitions & Submissions page, along with our Bursaries & Funding, to ensure that we are connecting our writers with the best upcoming opportunities. Here are a few deadlines we wanted to highlight this October.
Submissions
The Pigs Back
Deadline: 15 October 2023
The Pig’s Back (named for Donegal’s Muckish mountain and for the phrase ar mhuin na muice, to be in luck) is a literary prose journal that aims to bring the rest of Ireland – and in turn, the world – to the northwest. Founded by the Regional Cultural Centre in Letterkenny, it publishes short fiction and essays.
Banshee Press
Deadline: 31 October 2023
Banshee Press is a small independent Irish publisher that produces a twice-yearly literary journal, Banshee, as well as a select list of books. They love exciting, accessible, contemporary writing in all forms. Banshee Press was founded in 2014 by three writers: Laura Cassidy, Claire Hennessy and Eimear Ryan. In 2021, the Banshee Press founders were included in The Bookseller’s Rising Stars list.
The Stinging Fly Magazine
Deadline: 28 November 2023
The Stinging Fly is a Dublin-based print magazine and small press. Our mission is to seek out, nurture, publish and promote the very best new writers and new writing. The Stinging Fly will next be open for general submissions from Monday November 13th until midnight Irish time on Tuesday November 28th. Submissions received during this period will be read for our Summer 2024 issue.
Competitions
New Voices: The An Post Writing Prize
Deadline: 6th October 2023
The An Post Writing Prize has a new reward category for writers from the Irish-based Ukranian community invited to submit their original entries this year. Writers from this community aged 16+ invited to compose a new and original short story, essay or poem describing their experiences of flight and exile in no more than 1,000 words. The winner will be announced at the An Post Irish Book Awards Gala Dinner and Awards Ceremony in the Convention Centre Dublin on November 22nd.
The winner will receive an An Post Irish Book Awards trophy plus a €500 voucher to use in creative writing courses at the Irish Writers Centre. The 5 other shortlisted writers will receive €100 vouchers which will be handed out at the ceremony.
The Australian Book Review Peter Porter Poetry Prize 2024
Deadline: 9th October 2023
The Australian Book Review welcomes entries for the twentieth Peter Porter Poetry Prize, which is open to all international poets. This year the Porter Prize is worth a total of AU$10,000 – with a first prize of AU$6,000 and four runner up prizes of AU$1000.
Entries must be an original single-authored poem of not more than 70 lines written in English. Poems must not have been previously published. The five shortlisted poems will be published in the January–February 2024 issue and the winner will be announced at a ceremony later that month.
It costs AU$20 for current ABR subscribers to to enter and AU$30 for non subscribers.
The Caledonia Novel Award 2024
Deadline: 1st November 2023
This award is for unpublished novelists similar to our very own Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair.
The entry fee for The Caledonia Novel Award 2024 is £25 per novel. Novels can be in any genre for adults or young adults. Novels must be at least 50,000 words in length.
Top prize: £1,500 and an exclusive framed award designed by Edinburgh artist Lucy Roscoe
Highly Commended: £500
Special prize: a free place on a writing course at Moniack Mhor Creative Writing Centre for the best novel from the UK and Ireland
Residency Opportunities
Irish Writers Centre and Tyrone Guthrie Centre Jack Harte Bursary 2024
Deadline: 18 October 2023
Irish Writers Centre and Tyrone Guthrie Centre (TGC) are offering a professional writer a one-week fully resourced Writer-in-Residence Bursary to take place in 2024 by arrangement with the Tyrone Guthrie Centre. The award is named in honour of Jack Harte, founder of the Irish Writers Centre, in celebration and acknowledgement of his contribution to Irish literature.
Irish Writers Centre and Tyrone Guthrie Centre Lacuna Bursary 2024
Deadline: 18 October 2023
The Irish Writers Centre and Tyrone Guthrie Centre Lacuna Bursary offers an emerging writer one-week fully resourced writer-in-residence bursary to take place in 2024 by arrangement with the Tyrone Guthrie Centre. This bursary is designed to support an emerging writer from an underrepresented background in Irish literature to develop their writing practice.
Iceland Writers Retreat
Deadline: 31 October 2023
Scholarship applications for the 2023 Iceland Writers Retreat are available and being accepted until October 31st 2023. The Iceland Writers Retreat (IWR) will be held in Reykjavik, a UNESCO City of Literature, from April 24-28, 2024. At the IWR, participants gather for small group workshops on the craft of writing, led by esteemed faculty. In 2024 our faculty will include: Jeannette Walls, Katie Kitamura, Hari Kunzru, Meg Wolitzer, Nii Ayikwei Parkes, Phil Klay, Omar El Akkad, Frida Isberg, Vivek Shraya, Deirdre Mask, Nicole Krauss, and others.
Tyrone Guthrie Centre Bursary Awards for Children’s Books Artists
Deadline: 10th November 2023
Children’s Books Ireland and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre are pleased to announce an opportunity for Children’s Book artists and writers to avail of a week-long residency, to take place between 19th and 26th February or 26th February and 4th March 2024.
Funding
Arts and Disability Connect funding
Deadline: 10th October 2023
Arts and Disability Connect includes Mentoring, Training, New Work, and Research and Reflection awards for individual artists with disabilities. In 2023 these four awards are split across two opportunities.
The first opportunity includes Mentoring or Training awards. The second opportunity includes New Work or Research and Reflection awards (previously known as Research and Development awards).
Opportunity 1
Opens: Monday 3 April.
Deadline: Wednesday 7 June at 4pm.
This Opportunity is now closed for 2023.
Opportunity 2
Opens: Monday 14 August.
Deadline: Tuesday 10 October at 4pm.
Applicants will be contacted with their outcome by early December.
Please get in touch with Arts Administrative Assistant Tom Jordan at tom@irishwriterscentre.ie if your organisation has a competition, submission, bursary or funding opportunity for writers that you would like us to include in our monthly round-up blog post.
