You are currently browsing the monthly archive for April 2025.
May 7
The Wigtown Poetry Prizes
Online entry only; over 16s
Wigtown International Prize: £1500; Runner-up: £200. Fee: £10
Wigtown Scots Prize: £500; Runner-up: £200. Fee: £8
Wigtown Scottish Gaelic Prize: £500; Runner-up: £200. Fee: £8
Dumfries & Galloway Fresh Voice Award. Fee: £10
Alastair Reid Pamphlet Prize: 30 copies of a pamphlet of your work. Fee: £25
Festival: September 6 – 5 October 5
Judges: Lesley Benzie; Elissa Hunter-Dorans; Hugh McMillan; Tom Pow
Ware Poets Open Poetry Competition 2025
Prizes: £800, £400, £200, and the Ware Sonnet Prize (£200)
Anthology for winners and commended poets
(£4.00, post free: pre-ordered).
Prizegiving at Ware Arts Centre, or online, Friday, July 11
Fee: £5 per poem Length: up to 50 lines
Deadline: 30 April
Sole judge: Hannah Copley
Entry form available at https://warepoets.org
or SAE: The Competition Secretary, Ware Poets Competition,
25 Southbrook Drive, Cheshunt, Hertfordshire EN8 0QJ
or email: warepoets_competition@hotmail.co.uk
Don’t forget to enter Wirral Poetry Festival’s 15th Open Poetry Competition –
deadline for entries 30th May.
Poems on any subject, of not more than 40 lines, in English,Open prizes adjudicated by Helen Ivory and Martin Figura; Wirral Prizes by Pauline Rowe.Open prizes: 1st prize £250, 4 £25 runner-up prizes.
Wirral prizes (for entrants living/working in Wirral): 1st Prize £100, 2 £25 runner-up prizes.Entry: £4 per poem / £10 for 3 poemsFull details and online entry at www.wirralpoetryfestival.org.ukWinners to be notified by 11 July 2025
and invited to a competition celebration
during the Wirral Poetry Festival in October.
Competition results posted online on 18 July 2025
The Kipling Society’s John McGivering Literary Competition 2025
Who hath desired the Sea – the sight of salt water unbounded?
The heave and the halt and the hurl and the crash of the comber wind-hounded?
The sleek-barrelled swell before storm – grey, foamless, enormous and growing?
Stark calm on the lap of the Line – or the crazy-eyed hurricane blowing?
His Sea in no showing the same – his Sea and the same ’neath all showing?
The Sea and the Hills
What is a woman that you forsake her,
And the hearth-fire and the home-acre
To go with the old grey Widow-maker?
Harp-Song of the Dane-women
Rudyard Kipling, fascinated by the sea, from his childhood in Southsea onwards,
often wrote about the ocean – its beauty, allure and danger,
and its challenge to human courage and discipline.
The Kipling Society’s John McGivering Literary Competition 2025 is open to poems
of up to 30 lines about any aspect of the sea, connected directly or obliquely
with the writings and/or life of Kipling.
There are separate competitions for adults and for younger poets aged 12 to 17
A first prize of £350 will be offered for the adult competition
and one of £75 for the younger poets’ competition
£5 entry fee for either competitionDeadline: 1 May at 23.59 BST
via the Kipling Society website: www.kiplingsociety.co.uk
FEDERATION OF WRITERS SCOTLAND
VERNAL EQUINOX COMPETITION 2025
Five categories, poetry (any number of poems, no more than 40 lines each),
short stories (any number, between 501 and 2000 words each),
flash fiction/mini-story (any number, up to 500 words), Scottish Gaelic and Scots
(poetry, line limit as above).
Prizes in each category: 1st prize £100, 2nd prize £25, 3rd prize £10
Brian Whittingham Memorial Prize £50.
Open entry.
Closing date for the competition 15 April 2025.
Entry fee is £4 for each entry, £10 for 3 in any one category, £4 for each subsequent entry
fwscompetition@gmail.com
For full rules go to https://www.federationofwriters.scot/competition