A not-for-profit organisation
Encouraging Creative Writing
WELCOME to the Bedford International Writing Competition.
To celebrate the fifth year of the Competition we are delighted to announce that we are increasing our first prize in both poetry and short story categories to £500.
The Bedford International Writing Competition is open for submissions from 1st May to 30th September 2018.
We receive entries from across the world and our home town of Bedford boasts a rich cultural and racial mix. We are excited to contribute to this cultural vibrancy through our annual competition and events. In addition to our main prizes, The Bedford Prize, kindly sponsored by The Harpur Trust, enables us to award £100 each to the highest placed story and poem by Bedford residents.
All proceeds from the Competition are donated to charities which aim to encourage reading, literacy and language skills.
Each year we feel privileged to read your short stories and poetry. As our Competition goes from strength to strength we look forward to receiving your submissions.
Sue Moorcroft is a Sunday Times and international bestselling author and has reached the coveted No.1 spot on Amazon Kindle. She’s won the Readers’ Best Romantic Novel award, the Katie Fforde Bursary, and has been nominated on several other occasions, including for the Romantic Novel of the Year Awards.
She is a former judge of the Writers' Forum competitions.
Her short stories, serials, columns, writing guides and courses have appeared all over the world.
Website:
http://www.suemoorcroft.com/
Dr Sharon Priestley has presented literature courses for the University of Cambridge, The Letchworth Settlement, Bedford’s Rothsay Education Centre and two American universities. The topics of her courses range from classic English and American novels to those that have won the Man Booker Prize, short stories from around the world, poetry, women’s writings and children’s literature. She has also presented courses on James Boswell and Samuel Johnson and has given papers focused on those fascinating individuals at the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies conferences and Literary London conferences.
Rory Waterman was born in Belfast and grew up in Lincolnshire. His second poetry collection, Sarajevo Roses, has recently been published by Carcanet. His debut, Tonight the Summer's Over (Carcanet, 2013), was a PBS Recommendation and was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Prize. He co-runs New Walk Editions, and writes for the TLS and other publications. He is senior lecturer in English and Creative Writing at Nottingham Trent University.
Website:
https://rorywaterman.com/
Ruth Hogan worked for ten years in a senior local government position (Human Resources – Recruitment, Diversity and Training). After an accident in her early thirties she was unable to work full-time and this convinced her to start writing seriously. She got a part-time job as an osteopath’s receptionist but spent all her spare time writing. She passed the time recovering from cancer and enduring chemotherapy by writing, and the eventual result was The Keeper of Lost Things, published early 2017 which rapidly became a best-seller. Her next book, The Particular Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes is available from May 2018.
Lesley Saunders is the author of nine books and pamphlets of poetry, most recently Periplous: the Twelve Voyages of Pytheas, a chapbook from Shearsman Books. Her poems have been widely published and have won many awards. Her collection Cloud Camera was described by Michael Hulse in The Poetry Review as ‘the most intelligent and thrilling book of poetry I’ve seen in several years’ and elsewhere as ‘a modern classic’. Lesley has performed her work at various festivals and on the radio; she has worked on collaborative projects with artists, photographers, sculptors, dancers, and a composer and choir. She runs writing workshops for major organisations as well as for local groups.
Steve Lowe is a journalist, academic and one-time local politician. He first began working for Bedfordshire on Sunday as a political reporter and commentator in 1996. In 1999 he became the news editor and in 2000 the editor. After leaving in 2014 he has worked as a freelance journalist. Steve gained a BSc (Hons) at the OU in Politics and an MSc at Birkbeck College, University of London, in European Politics and Globalisation. He has lectured on politics and journalism at the University of Bedfordshire, Press Association, and at many colleges and secondary schools.
| Story Title | Author |
| Bubblegum Tends to Corrupt | Bill Roberts, Liverpool, Merseyside |
| Clones Apart | Robert Smith, Perth Scotland |
| The Daniel Album | Bruce Harris, Seaton, Devon |
| Dot | Josie Turner, Tonbridge, Kent |
| Friday's Child | Roz DeKett, Philadelphia, USA |
| Get Along Without You Now | Dianne Bown-Wilson, Exeter, Devon |
| Good Girl | Paul Barnett, Clevedon, Somerset |
| A Hidden Place | Mike Fox, Richmond, London |
| Laxmi's Lost Boy | Neil Beardmore, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire |
| Maybe Margate | Helen Salsbury, Denmead, Hampshire |
| When the Buttercups Burst | Nigel Hall, East Dulwich, London |
| The Wrong Socks | Alison Wassell, St Helens, Merseyside |
| Poem Title | Poet |
| Attention-seeking | Bill Greenwell, Darlington, County Durham |
| Conserving Time | Ali Pardoe, Royston, Hertfordshiret |
| Death in the city | Anne Casey, New South Wales, Australia |
| Fledgling | Cheryl Pearson, Levenshulme, Manchester |
| Goose Girl | Cheryl Pearson, Levenshulme, Manchester |
| Hotel | Mary Gilonne, Pourrieres, France |
| Japanese Watercolour | Sue Norton, York, Yourkshire |
| Mr Abercrombie | A F Pollard, Worksop, Nottinghamshire |
| Rabbit and tortoise find each other on a window sill | Kay Cotton, Potters Bar, Hertfordshire |
| Sissy writes to her father from Funchal | Kay Cotton, Potters Bar, Hertfordshire |
| The Solace of Bearings | Susan Davies, Fareham, Hampshire |
| Sugar Thief | Catherine Rose, Ickwell, Bedfordshire |
| Trial | Cheryl Pearson, Levenshulme, Manchester |
| Vicarage Kitchen | Paul Canon Harris, Bournemouth, Dorset |
Sophie Hannah is a best-selling author of atmospheric, psychological thrillers and her poetry is studied for exams. In September 2015 BWC invited her to be interviewed before a live audience at the Trinity Theatre, Bedford. She entertained us with her recollections of how she became a successful writer and shared some of her novel-writing secrets.
Leigh Russell is a best-selling crime novelist. Her association with the BWC began in 2014 when the competition went ‘international’. She has been the judge for the 2014 and the 2015 competitions. We are extremely grateful for the encouragement that she has given us and gives to writers of all abilities.
Toby Litt is an English writer and academic in the Department of English and Humanities at Birkbeck, University of London. He has several publications to his name both novels and collections of short stories. Born in Ampthill and a former pupil of Bedford Modern School. In 2016 he was the judge of the BIWC Short Story Competition.
Margaret Norwich was the judge of the Bedford Prize in 2015 and 2016. She studied liberal arts at Vassar College, New York and then came over to England to read English at Girton College, Cambridge. As well as working in publishing and the voluntary sector, Margaret lectured for many years on English Language and Literature at De Montfort and Cranfield Universities. American born, she now regards herself a true Bedfordian.
Ian McEwen was the judge for the 2016 Poetry Competition. He has had his poems published in a variety of magazines as well as producing a pamphlet, The Stammering Man and his first full collection in book form, Intermittent Beings. He is interested in opportunities to broaden the practice and appreciation of poetry, through readings, workshops or residencies.
© 2018 The Bedford Writing Competition. Developed by Xiaorong Tan
