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1st Prize £2000
2nd Prize £300
3rd Prize £200
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THE BEDFORD COMPETITION, a nonprofit group, runs annual international short story and poetry competitions for anyone in the world over 17 years of age.

There are prizes totalling £5,600 and all winning and shortlisted stories and poems are published as an anthology.

SHORT STORY & POETRY COMPETITION MAIN PRIZES – £2000

2nd PRIZES – £300

3rd PRIZES – £200

 

CYGNATURE SHORT STORY & POETRY PRIZES  – £200

The International Cygnature Competition Prizes are open to young writers worldwide aged 17-25 yrs. Supported by the Univerisity of Bedfordshire

 

BEDFORD SHORT STORY & POETRY PRIZES – £100

Open to entrants residing in the Bedford, UK area (see competition rules for eligible postcodes).

All submissions are entered in the Main Prize.

Latest News

2025 was a record-breaking year for The Bedford Competition. Thanks to all who entered. We are busy finalising our preparations of the 2025 submissions to go forward to this year’s judges for long listing.

(This year’s judges can be seen further down the page.)

The judges will then finalise their choices and we will publish the long-lists on the website followed by the announcement of winners at our Presentation Event in Bedford, UK on Friday April 17th. Everyone is welcome to attend which commences at 1830 at the Mercure Hotel.

Once announced all results will be published on the website.

 

The 2026 competition opens on May 1st which is in:

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Below are the judges for the 2025 competition

The judges for the 2026 competition will be announced shortly 

Fran Lock

Poetry Prize Judge

Fran Lock is the author of numerous chapbooks and fourteen poetry collections. Her most recent collections are Hyena! (Poetry Bus Press, 2023), shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize 2023 and for the PEN Heaney Prize 2024, and 'a disgusting lie': further adventures through the neoliberal hell-mouth (Pamenar Press, 2023). more... Read More

Toby Litt

Short Story Prize Judge

Toby Litt is a writer, academic and environmental activist based in London. He grew up in Ampthill and went to Bedford Modern School. He has published novels, short story collections and poems. His most recent book is A Writer’s Diary (Galley Beggar, 2023) – and his diary continues to run on Substack. Read More... Read More

Steve Bywater Cygnature Story Prize

Stephen Bywater

Cygnature Story Prize Judge

Stephen Bywater joined the merchant navy at sixteen before studing English at university. After graduating he completed an MLitt at St Andrews. For twenty years he has taught English in Bedford. He is currently teaching English at a college in Cambridge. He is the author of ... Read More

Rishi Dastidar

Cygnature Poetry Prize Judge

Rishi Dastidar’s poetry has been published by the Financial Times and BBC amongst many others. He is a fellow of The Complete Works, and a consulting editor at The Rialto magazine. A poem from his Laurel Prize long-listed third collection, Neptune’s Projects (Nine Arches Press), was included in The Forward Book of Poetry 2024... Read More

Kate Packman

Bedford Story Prize Judge

Kate Packman is the author of You Can See the End of the World From Here which was longlisted for the Bridport Novel Prize 2024 (published by author cooperative Protea Press). The novel explores the challenges of parenting, mental health issues and the menopause. After graduating from University of Bedfordshire, she completed an MA in creative writing at Birkbeck... Read More

Hazera Forth

Bedford Poetry Prize Judge

Hazera Forth co-organises Bedford’s Stanza poetry society and participates in a number of other poetry groups in Bedford. Her work has been long listed in the Poetry Wales Pamphlet Prize and several other publications... Read More

Acknowledgements

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University of Bedfordshire

The Bedford Competition is an established nonprofit group that runs annual short story and poetry competitions. We are an internationally recognised competition with a carefully curated panel of judges who are either acclaimed writers or agents from renowned literary agencies.

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Liv Maidment

Short Story Prize Judge

Liv Maidment is Head of Books and a Literary Agent specialising in literary, upmarket, and book club fiction. Liv came to the Madeleine Milburn Agency from The Blair Partnership and United Agents where she worked with bestselling and award-winning authors and global literary brands. She joined the agency in 2020 where she represents a stellar list of literary, upmarket, and book club fiction. As Head of Books, Liv works closely with the directors to implement strategy across the agency.

Fran Lock

Poetry Prize Judge

Fran Lock is the author of numerous chapbooks and fourteen poetry collections. Her most recent collections are Hyena! (Poetry Bus Press, 2023), shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize 2023 and for the PEN Heaney Prize 2024, and ‘a disgusting lie’: further adventures through the neoliberal hell-mouth (Pamenar Press, 2023). Spectres // Defectors /// No Respecters, an omnibus of three previous titles, with selected new material was published by Culture Matters in late 2024.Her most recent pamphlet is The New Herbal (Blueprint Press, 2024), and Vulgar Errors/ Feral Subjects, a collection of essays exploring feral subjectivity through the lens of the medieval bestiary, was published by Out-Spoken Press last year. Fran was the Judith E. Wilson Poetry Fellow at Cambridge University 2022-2023 and is a Commissioning Editor at the radical arts and culture cooperative Culture Matters. She lives in Kent with her sassy American bully, Luna. 

Toby Litt

Short Story Prize Judge

Toby Litt is a writer, academic and environmental activist based in London. He grew up in Ampthill and went to Bedford Modern School. He has published novels, short story collections and poems. His most recent book is A Writer’s Diary (Galley Beggar, 2023) – and his diary continues to run on Substack.  His novel Patience was shortlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize. He is a member of English Pen and editor of the Writers Rebel website. The recent Netflix series, Dead Boy Detectives, was based on Toby’s run on the Vertigo/DC comic of the same name. Toby is the Head of Creative Writing at the University of Southampton. 

Jessica Mookherjee

Poetry Prize Judge

Jessica Mookherjee is author of two poetry collections and her second, Tigress (Nine Arches Press) was Shortlisted for best second collection in the Ledbury Munthe Prize 2021. She has been twice highly commended in the Forward Prize for best single poem (in 2018 and in 2021) and her work is included in notable anthologies such as ‘Staying Human’ (Bloodaxe). Her latest pamphlet is Playlists (Broken Sleep Books). Her next full collection is called Notes from a Shipwreck and out with Nine Arches Press in August 2022 . Her long poem Desire Lines will be published by Broken Sleep Books in 2023. She is a co-editor of Against the Grain Press and a Board Member of the Poetry Society.

Stephen Bywater

Cygnature Story Prize Judge

Stephen Bywater joined the merchant navy at sixteen before going on to study English at university. After graduating he taught in South and Central America for three years, returning to the UK to complete an MLitt at St Andrews. For the past twenty years he has taught English in Bedford, where he lives with his wife and two daughters. He is currently teaching English at a college in Cambridge He is the author of two novels, The Devil’s Ark and Night of the Damned (published by Headline/Hachette), and is currently working on his third.

Rishi Dastidar

Cygnature Poery Prize Judge

Rishi Dastidar’s poetry has been published by the Financial Times and BBC amongst many others. He is a fellow of The Complete Works, and a consulting editor at The Rialto magazine. A poem from his debut collection Ticker-tape was included in The Forward Book of Poetry 2018, and his second collection, Saffron Jack, was published in the UK by Nine Arches Press in 2020. He is also editor of The Craft: A Guide to Making Poetry Happen in the 21st Century (Nine Arches Press), and co-editor of Too Young, Too Loud, Too Different: Poems from Malika’s Poetry Kitchen (Corsair).

A poem from Rishi Dastidar’s Laurel Prize long-listed third collection, Neptune’s Projects (Nine Arches Press), was included in The Forward Book of Poetry 2024. He is editor of The Craft: A Guide to Making Poetry Happen in the 21st Century (Nine Arches Press), and co-editor of Too Young, Too Loud, Too Different: Poems from Malika’s Poetry Kitchen (Corsair). He also reviews poetry for The Guardian (UK) and is a trustee of Wasafiri. (Photograph credit: Naomi Woddis)

Kate Packman

Bedford Story Prize Judge

Kate Packman is the author of You Can See the End of the World From Here which was longlisted for the Bridport Novel Prize 2024 (published by author cooperative Protea Press). The novel explores the challenges of parenting, mental health issues and the menopause. After graduating from University of Bedfordshire, she completed an MA in creative writing at Birkbeck. She has spent the last decade teaching secondary school English language and literature in Bedfordshire as well as chairing Ampthill Literary Festival for over five years. She is an active member of Ampthill Writers’ Group.

 

Paul Barnes

Bedford Story Prize Judge

Paul Barnes retired from teaching secondary school English Language and Literature in Bedford in 2019. He has been a keen attender of poetry and cultural events in north Beds, and chairs Poetry Café monthly, in succession to the late Richard Hancock. The group has seen four compilation volumes edited by Paul in 2021-22. He writes occasional poetry and prose, co-runs the monthly Read Poets Society, helps in two local bookshops, and is a fanatic for cricket umpiring and Shakespeare, The Place Theatre, the Rothsay Education Centre, and the Campaign for Real Ale.

Hazera Forth

Bedford Poetry Prize Judge

Hazera Forth co-organises Bedford’s Stanza poetry society and participates in a number of other poetry groups in Bedford. Her work has been long listed in the Poetry Wales Pamphlet Prize and several other publications. After nearly half a century of post 1971 immigration generational trauma, Hazera pursues enlightenment through allotmenteering, twitching, performance poeting and nature writing.  Hazera was a Trustee at Bedford Players Trust for 18 months. Currently a leader in analytics in the NHS, she hopes that one day fate will have her standing up at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.