12 September, 2023
Opportunities and Competitions September 2023
Photo credit: the facade of Palás cinema in Galway, taken by our Communications and Marketing Officer Jo Morton.
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 September.
Irish Writers Centre Opportunities:
The Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair 2024
Deadline: 30th September 2023
Our very own Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair is back for its 12th year with submissions open until the the 30th of September. You probably know all about it by now but in case you don’t, IWC Novel Fair is a competition open to anyone who has yet to publish a full length novel.
How does it work? Well, all you have to do is submit the first 10,000 words of your manuscript as well as a 300 word synopsis. Then, our panel of judges chooses twelve winners who get to attend the Novel Fair 2024.
What happens at Novel Fair 2024? In February 2024, 12 winners will be given the opportunity to pitch their novel to top publishers and literary agents. Described as ‘A Dragons’ Den for writers’ (The Irish Times), many Novel Fair winners have gone on to find their agents and publishers at the Fair, get their books published, and win prestige literary prizes (such as Rooney Prize for literature, Kerry group Irish Novel of the year) as a result of attending Novel Fair. Authors like Aingeala Flannery, Kevin Curran and Catriona Lally were all Novel Fair winners once upon a time and so far 33 Novel Fair winners have gone on to be published novelists with many more signed to agents.
Submission Opportunities:
The Honest Ulsterman
Deadline: 30th September 2023
The Honest Ulsterman is a highly respected online literary magazine that started out as a print publication way back in 1968. They are calling for poetry (up to 3 poems), prose and critical writing, suggestions for interviews etc. for their October 2023 issue. Prose can be up to 5000 words. They also welcome video poetry.
They don’t pay however they’ve published some of the biggest names in Irish literature down through the years from Paul Muldoon and Ciarán Carson to Seamus Heaney and as a well known, free and online publication they have a great reach so they’re a brilliant place to get your work published in terms of visibility.
Tramp Press
Deadline: 1st October 2023
If you don’t know about Tramp Press by now you really should. Writers that they’ve published include Doireann Ní Ghríofa, Sara Baume and Mike McCormack. If you have a manuscript available and you think the team over at Tramp might be interested then you have until the 1st of October 2023 to submit your manuscript. And of course make sure to check their website to see if your work might be a good fit!
Competitions:
Westival (Westport Music and Arts Festival) Poetry Competition
Deadline: 15th September 2023
For €10 you can enter three poems and with prizes of €1000 for first place, €250 for second places and €100 for third place it’s worth a shot. They accept entries in English and in Irish and there’s no set theme. Poems can have a maximum of 40 lines.
New Voices: The An Post Writing Prize
Deadline: 22nd September 2023
An Post has launched a new writing competition called ‘New Voices: The An Post Writing Prize’. This year, the focus is on the Irish based Ukrainian community, with 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 .
Submissions can be written in either Ukrainian or English and these can be submitted by e-mail to Writingprize@anpost.ie or in hard copy to: New Voices: The An Post Writing Prize, PO Box 13287, Freepost FDN7461, Dublin 1
The Moth Nature Writing Prize 2023
Deadline: 30th September 2023
The Moth Nature Writing Prize aims to encourage and celebrate the art of nature writing. It is awarded annually to an unpublished piece of prose or poetry which best combines exceptional literary merit with an exploration of the writer’s relationship with the natural world.
The prize is open to anyone over the age of sixteen, as long as the work is original and previously unpublished. They accept poetry and prose up to a limit of 4000 words and entry costs €15.
Caledonia Novel Award
Deadline: 1st November 2023
This award is for unpublished novelists similar to our very own Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair (Which is open for submissions from now until the 30th of September btw!) 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. The top prize is £1,500 and an exclusive framed award designed by Edinburgh artist Lucy Roscoe. There is also a special prize of a free place on a writing course at Moniack Mhor Creative Writing Centre for the best novel from the UK and Ireland.
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.
