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Enter an International Short Story & Poetry Competition
Flash Fiction Competition added for 2026

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.
  • For 2026 we are running a Flash Fiction competition in memory of one of the founder members of The Bedford Competition, Philip Carey who passed away earlier this year. All profits will go to Dementia UK, Philip’s chosen charity.
  • See all competition categories and prize money here.
  • Open to writers worldwide.

Why enter The Bedford Competition?

How it works

Who can enter?

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

Ready to enter?

The short story and poetry competition runs annually  between May 1st and October 31st

The Flash Fiction competition will run from June 30th 2026 – September 30th 2026

Submit your short story
Submit your poem
Submit your Flash Fiction story

Meet the 2026 judges

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

Latest News

 

2025 Poetry and Short Story Main Competition Longlist, shortlist and overall competition winners announced.

Mark Steinhardt Bedford Competition reader to appear at Bedford Fringe Festival ‘Bedfringe’

 

2024 Poetry winner Panika Dillon longlisted for Forward Poetry prize.

Acknowledgements

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University of Bedfordshire
Christopher Fielden
Parlour
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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 Short 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 Spoon Knife (Autonomous Press), 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; Blue-White Dot; Secret Life of Data. He occasionally reviews for Tears in the Fence and its blog.

Ian McEwen

Cygnature Poetry Prize 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.