A UK poetry submission schedule for early 2020

I shall try to submit to several of these (mostly UK) competitions and submission windows -

• January
  • Ambit - Submission window opens on 1st (closes on 1st March)
  • Envoi - Submission window opens
  • Kent and Sussex poetry competition - 1st Prize £1000, entry fee £5, deadline 31st Jan.
  • Stinging Fly - Submission window closes on Jan 16th
  • Losslit has a January Submission window
  • The scores (St Andrews) Submission window closes on 31st Jan
• February
  • Finished creatures. Theme - "Balance". Window closes 9th Feb.
  • Interpreter's House window opens
  • Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine. 1st prize £1000. Fee £7. Deadline 14th Feb. See http://hippocrates-poetry.org/
  • Indigo Dreams book competition - Deadline 29th Feb. 17 pounds.
• March
  • Poetry Business pamphlet/book competition (deadline 1st March)
  • Enfield Poetry Competition - 1st prize £500. Entry fee £4. Deadline 7th March.
  • Cinnamon's Poetry Pamphlet Prize. Fee £10, 2 pamphlets published. Deadline 31st March.
• April
  • Frogmore Papers - Submission window opens on the 1st
  • Ware Poets Competition - Fee £4. 1st prize £600. Deadline 30th April
  • Ver Poets Competition - Fee £4. 1st prize £600. Deadline 30th April
• May
  • Under the radar - 1st-31st window for poetry. See https://www.ninearchespress.com/magazine.html
  • Bridport - Competition deadline 31st May. See http://www.bridportprize.org.uk/
  • Envoi - Submission window opens
• June
  • Allegro window opens 1st June. Theme: History
  • Interpreter's House window opens
  • Paperswans pamphlet competition (deadline 30th June)
  • High Window submissions open

A UK/Eire prose submission schedule for early 2020

As more magazines introduce submission windows, and competitions increase their significance, it's worth planning ahead. I shall try to submit to these (mostly UK) competitions and submission windows -

• January
  • Stinging Fly - Submission window closes on Jan 16th
  • Wigleaf - stories under a 1000 words. Submit during the last week in January - see http://wigleaf.com/about.htm
  • Losslit has a January Submission window
  • Pure Slush. Deadline 31st Jan. Theme: Beauty. Max 1000 words
• February
  • Lost Balloon 1000 words. (1st-7th)
  • HU (deadline 7th Feb)
  • National Flash Fiction anthology. Theme: Family. Deadline 15th Feb.
  • Interpreter's House - Submission window open
  • Ambit - Submission window opens on 1st. Closes on 1st March (you pay to submit)
  • Exeter - Competition deadline 28th Feb. Max 3000 words. Fee £7, 1st prize £700. See http://www.exeterwriters.org.uk/p/competition.html
  • The scores (St Andrews) Submission window closes on 29th Feb (opens 1st Jan)
• March
  • White Review Short Story Prize. 1st prize £2,500. Entry fee £15 (50 free entries for low-income writers). Deadline 4th March. 2,000 - 7,000 words.
  • The BBC National Short Story Award. Max 8,000 words. Free entry. 1st prize £15,000. Deadline 9th March.
  • The Cambridge Prize - Fee £9. 1st prize £1000. Deadline 15th March. Max 400 words.
  • Southword - fiction window (Deadline 31st March. Opens 1st Jan)
• April
  • Bath competition - deadline 15th April. Max 2,200 words. Fee £8, 1st prize £1200. See https://www.bathshortstoryaward.org/
  • QuietManDave Prize (Flash Fiction or Non-fiction). Deadline 17th April. 1st prize £1000 in each category. Fee £5.
• May
  • Bristol Competition - deadline 1st May. Max 4000 words. Fee £9, 1st prize £1000. There's an anthology too. See http://www.bristolprize.co.uk/
  • Brick Lane Bookshop Short Story Prize. 1st prize £1000. Entry fee £10. Deadline 15 May. 1000-5000 words. Longlist anthologised.
  • Bridport - Competition deadline 31st May. Max 5000 words (Fee £9, 1st prize £5000) or 250 words (Fee £7, 1st prize £1000). See http://www.bridportprize.org.uk/
  • Frome story competition - Deadline 31st May. First prize £400. Entry fee £8. 1000-2200 words. See http://www.fromeshortstorycompetition.co.uk
  • Yeovil story competition - Deadline 31st May. Fee £7. 1st prize £500. Max 2000 words. See https://www.yeovilprize.co.uk
• June
  • VS Pritchett - (Fee £7.50, 1st prize £1000). See http://rsliterature.org/award/v-s-pritchett-memorial-prize/ Deadline 28th June.
  • Stinging Fly window opens.
  • Postbox story submissions close on 30th June.
  • Under the radar - 1st-30th window. See https://www.ninearchespress.com/magazine.html
  • Wells Festival Story Prize. Deadline 30th June. Fee £6. 1st prize £1000. 2000 words max
• July

My writing year

It began so well. I amassed 5 acceptances in January. By July I'd had 18 prose/poetry acceptances. But in the second half of the year I managed just one acceptance. Rejections have been pouring in.

I wrote 11 poems. 4 might be ok, though some of those are slight. One's been accepted by "Fenland Journal". I wrote 12 stories (about 13,000 words), about half of them decent, amongst them some Flash. In spring I wrote a 3,000 word story which pleased me. Nothing's been accepted yet.

Below are my updated poetry stats -

Other people's stats include

• Mat Riches' stats (including rejection info)
• Robin Houghton's stats

My reading was more fruitful. As usual, I managed to read about 100 books -

• I'm glad I finally got round to reading short story collections by Claire Keegan, Courttia Newland, Eley Williams and Janice Galloway.
• It's been a year of flash collections - K.M.Elkes, Meg Pokrass, Gary Duncan, Paul Beckman, etc.
• Among the poets that impressed were John McCullough.

As much as anything it's been a year when I've given some writers another chance and they've let me down again - Jackie Kay (poems), Tim Dooley, Penelope Lively (her stories), Douglas Dunn (his stories), Tessa Hadley (her stories).

Curate's egg poetry

A poem's rarely full of "good" lines. For a start, few lines are good or bad in isolation - their value is affected by context, and their purpose may be to increase the value of other lines rather than be important in themselves. They may provide continuity or background information. A poem needs pacing. It needs lines that act as sounding boards (material for the effect of the good lines to permeate into, in preference to white space).

However, while developing or critiquing a poem we often underscore "bad" lines. If these lines form most or all of a stanza, the stanza's vulnerable. A recognisable unit is easier to delete than part of a whole. This is why short-stanza'd poems are risky - they offer easy targets. Even more so list poems - each item can be individually ticked or crossed.

Readers might gloss over lines they don't like/understand, especially if they adopt a holistic top-down approach. Alternatively, bottom-up readers might assign penalty points or be distracted by lines they perceive as weak. Authors vary too in their attitude to their less good lines. Sometimes their policy is "if in doubt leave it out", taking no risks. Others assume the reader (each according to their own tastes) will do the editing. Avoiding the use of stanzas (or writing a long poem) is a way to stop the weak lines being isolated and picked on.

"Safety first", reader-centric poetry doesn't suit all readers. Nor does daring (aka hit-and-miss?) poetry. I vary in my preferences when reading - though I don't ignore duff lines, I'm prepared to turn a blind eye if there are adequate compensations elsewhere. When writing I'm more of an "if in doubt" person.

Keeping books and magazines

As regards writing, it's been a quiet autumn. Instead, we've been refitting the bedroom with a floor-to-ceiling wardrobe that has lots of book space. I look up old collections quite often (most recently I looked for Chrissie Williams' "Flying into the bear" pamphlet having bought her "Bear" book) so it's useful not to have my books and magazines boxed away. The photo shows about half of what I have.

The classifications are "publications I'm in", "magazines" (my most recent issue of each. I added "n+1" to the collection recently), "poetry monographs", "HappenStance", "prose monographs", "poetry anthologies","prose anthologies", "other". I'm beginning a "flash" section. Strangely sized magazines have a section too. I've hardly any novels.

I use the "magazines" most often, to show fellow writers places they might want to send their work to. It's the anthologies that I most often re-read. Since most of the books are small-press they contain material that's not on-line, and is probably out of print. I find them a useful resource. For example, when checking on the modern use of sestinas I found many examples I wouldn't have found elsewhere.

I don't think I'm hoarding. I've kept only one complete set of magazines, namely "Panurge".

Going fast

Pop into the HappenStance shop while stocks last.

Notes for a style vs content workshop

The notes I used to run a workshop on style versus content in prose are online now - see Style and substance