Competitions

Information on Entering NWC Competitions

Prose Competitions

These are held four times a year, spring, summer, autumn and winter.

Poetry Competitions

These are held bi-monthly with the first one being in January.

Competition Rules and Guidelines

Members may submit up to three entries for poetry (see below for prose rules).

Entries must be under a pseudonym, with your own name, the title, and which competition it is for on a separate slip of paper.

Poems must be typed on one side of A4 paper.
Prose must be typed on one side of A4 paper, should be numbered on each page, with an indication that further pages follow (i.e. m/f, 2/8, etc). Please also attach a cover page which contains only the title, pseudonym, word count, and which competition it is for.

Fees are one first class stamp per entry (for both poetry and prose).

Deadline for poetry is the first meeting after the relevant month. For prose deadlines see individual quarterly competitions. Please enclose an SAE if you wish your entry to be returned by post.

Prose Competition Rules

Prose competitions run quarterly instead of monthly. Unlike poetry, there is no maximum entry rule, and entrants can submit as many entries for a single prose competition as they like. Book token prize money is tripled for quarterly competitions. However, some judges put a limit on how many entries they will read so in case this happens please mark your entries in order of preference. Unfortunately, we don't always know this in advance of judging.

Points are awarded for winning entries in all competitions and book tokens for competition winners and runners up are awarded. Points are as follows:

1st place	7 points	Joint 1st	6 points
2nd place	5 points	Joint 2nd	4 points
3rd place	3 points	Highly Commended	2 points
Commended	1 point

Although it is not mandatory, adjudicators will normally provide a short paragraph commenting on individual entries. However, some adjudicators may provide more feedback than others. In all cases, the adjudicator's decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.