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Enter an International Short Story & Poetry Competition

1st Prize £2000
2nd Prize £400
3rd Prize £300

Share your words with us and the world

  • Chance of winning up to £2000 in the short story and poetry main prizes.
  • Separate short story and poetry prize winning categories for those aged 17-25 and for local Bedford residents. See all competition categories and prize money here.
  • Open to writers worldwide.

Why enter The Bedford Competition?

How it works

  • Submit your story or poem.
  • Our judges review entries anonymously.
  • Winners are announced on our website and celebrated at the presentation event.

Who can enter?

  • New and emerging writers and poets.
  • Experienced writers and poets.
  • Anyone aged 17+ worldwide.

Ready to enter?

 

The competition runs annually  between May 1st and October 31st

Submit your short story
Submit your poem

Meet the 2026 judges

Fran Lock
Poetry Main Prize Judge
Toby Litt
Story Main Prize Judge
Guy Russell
Cygnature Story Judge
Ian McEwen
Cygnature Poetry Judge
Kate Packman
Bedford Story Judge
Hazera Forth
Bedford Poetry Judge

Acknowledgements

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University of Bedfordshire
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Fran Lock

Poetry Main 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 Main 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. 

Guy Russell

Cygnature Story Prize Judge

Guy Russell was born in Chatham, UK, and has been a holiday courier, purchasing clerk, media analyst and fan-heater production operative. He currently works in Milton Keynes for the Open University. Work in No Spider Harmed (Arachne Press), Somewhere This Way (Fiction Desk), Brace (Comma Press), To Hull And Back 2018, Madame Morte (Black Shuck), Northern Stories vol. 3 (Arc), Troubles Swapped For Something Fresh (Salt), The Iron Book of New Humorous Verse (Iron), Liars League, The Rialto, The Interpreter’s House and elsewhere. Competition first prizes: HE Bates Award; Leicester Poetry Society; Ware Sonnet Prize; Cannon Sonnet or Not; Flash500. He occasionally reviews for Tears in the Fence and its blog.

Ian McEwen

Cygnature Poetry Judge

 Ian McEwen has lived in Bedford for 40 years and founded Ouse Muse, Bedford’s poetry open mic night. His poems have been widely published in magazines and won a number of competitions (even, once, a slam!). He has published a poetry collection (Intermittent beings, 2013) and three chapbooks.  Ian has been an editor of Magma and a NAWE board member as well as a trustee of a number of other charities and social enterprises. Before all that he studied science and philosophy and worked in financial services for a bit

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.

 

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.