Bold Types: Scottish Women’s Creative Writing Competition

Published on by Hannah Wright

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Be bold and submit your short stories and poems to Scotland’s only free creative writing competition for women. Our theme this year is Body Positive. As ever, we are looking for diverse interpretations of this idea, so give your creative muse free rein and email your short stories and poems of up to 1,000 words to info@womenslibrary.org.uk in a Word Document or typed in the body of the e-mail with ‘Bold Types Competition Entry’ in the subject line. You can enter once in each category and it’s completely free to enter. The closing date for entries is Friday 10th November.

Shortlisted writers will read their stories on 30th November in our Bold Types Creative Writing Showcase event. Our wonderfully supportive and encouraging panel of judges at the event include: acclaimed short story writer and novelist Anne Donovan; writer and intersectional feminist Sim Bajwa; Zoe Strachan, award-winning writer and tutor on the postgraduate creative writing programme at the University of Glasgow; and GWL’s own librarian, Wendy Kirk. Winners will be announced on the night and prizes include a one to one mentoring session with one of our judges and a selection of covetable books. You can read the work of our 2016 winners here.

Do you want to get involved but need a bit of help? Have no fear because our Bold Types workshops are here to help you be bold! We have two Creative Writing For Fearties sessions on Thursday 7th September and Thursday 5th October, the ideal place to fire up your literary mojo, discover your poetic powers and story strengths with some thought-provoking writing exercises. If your work is almost there, perhaps our Editing Mistress-Class is for you? This session will support you to polish your writing gem until it sparkles.

Closing date: Friday 10th November at 5pm.

Submitting your work: email your short stories and poems of up to 1,000 words to info@womenslibrary.org.uk in a Word Document or typed in the body of the e-mail with ‘Bold Types Competition Entry’ in the subject line.  Writers retain full copyright of their work.

Supported by Book Week Scotland.

 

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36 replies on “Bold Types: Scottish Women’s Creative Writing Competition”

Hi Stella. We’re checking permissions with the authors and should hopefully be able to publish these online this week.

By Post Author

Hi Ama,

Yes, anyone who identifies as being Scottish is welcome to submit.

Best wishes,

Hannah

By Post Author

I was born French, moved to Scotland, married a Scottish man and took British citizenship. Do I qualify?

Hi Martine,

Hi Martine,

Yes, any woman who identifies as being Scottish is welcome to submit and it’s at each entrants discretion. Good luck!

Best wishes,

Hannah

By Post Author

Hi Cristina,

We have the loose criteria that if you identify as being Scottish, whether you live here or live abroad, then you can enter. So this is at your own discretion and if you wish to enter, please do.

Best wishes,

Hannah

By Post Author

Hi Julia!

No, just a short email with either a word doc attached or the text in the body of the email.

Best wishes, Hannah

By Post Author

Hi Sahrish,

All entries must be fiction but you are welcome to make a story from a topic you are interested in. Does this answer your question?

Best wishes,

Hannah

By Post Author

Hi Patricia,

You can only submit one poem but because you’re allowed to enter once in each category then you can also enter a story as well if you wish.

I hope this helps.

Best wishes,

Hannah

By Post Author

Hello

Really interested in this competition but I want to know if the writer retains full copyright of their work with exception of giving GWL unrestricted rights to publish and include the work in their own material? Is there a T&C page for the competition?

Thank you

Steph

Hi Stephanie,

Writers do retain full copyright and we’ll promote their work online if we can but currently have no plans to publish them anywhere else due to budgets.

I’ll update this in the post. I hope this helps!

Best wishes,

Hannah

By Post Author

Hi Isha,

The theme this year is Body Positive and there is no line limit, just a word limit of 1,000 words.

Best wishes,

Hannah

By Post Author

Hi. I moved from Europe to Scotland when I was three and have lived here ever since. Am I qualified to enter, or do you have to be Scottish- born?

Hi Daniele,

Yes, you are definitely eligible to submit! Whether you’re born in Scotland or just live or work here, we’d love as many people as possible to submit.

Best wishes,

Hannah

By Post Author

Hi Maria,

Thanks so much for your question. We’d love young women to enter the competition so there’s no age limit. Hope this helps.

Best wishes,

Hannah

By Post Author

Hi there,

just checking – should we have our name and contact details on a Word doc entry or leave these details only in the body of the accompanying email?

Thanks.

Hi there :-)

I have submitted a poem into the competition.

If I am successful in being shortlisted- roughly when will I be notified?

Many thanks and warm wishes

Medi Wilkinson

Also I did not enter my personal details as I thought my e mail would be a sufficient form of contact?

Is this a problem? :-/ Hopefully not!

Kind regards :-)

Medi Wilkinson

Dear GWL, your email seems to be rejecting mine, so I will post my question here: could you tell us when will be the finalists are set to be announced?

Hi there,

I was just wondering when you’re decision will be made or if had already been made on which short stories will be short listed?

Thanks
Andrea

Hi there :-)
I have submitted a poem into the competition.
If I am successful in being shortlisted- roughly when will I be notified?
Many thanks and warm wishes
Medi Wilkinson
P,s also I did not submit my details except name as I thought an e mail would be a sufficient form of contact. Is this a problem? :-/ hopefully not!!

Kind regards

Medi Wilkinson

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