• Markets For Writers

    Markets For Writers

    Fish Publishing and their annual competitions is the market I’m bringing you this week. Fish Publishing have been running competitions since 1994 and their aim is to encourage new writers. They run four different annual competitions: Fish Short Story Prize Fish Flash Fiction Prize Fish Poetry Prize Fish Short Memoir Prize Each competition has a…

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  • Originally posted on Words of Margaux:   In her collection, The Siege, Esther Newton has proven to be a versatile writer who is able to tell engaging stories, and create strong characters in a terse manner. While each story is an average of 2,000 words long, when reading those tales, the reader feels that he’s…

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  • Now here’s a tempting one:    

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  • Monday Motivations/Fabulous First Few Words Part One

    A number of you contacted me to say how much you enjoyed my ‘ABC Of Short Story Ideas’ and found it useful in helping you to come up with story ideas of your own. With that in mind, I thought I’d stick with fiction and start a new weekly series, ‘Fabulous First Few Words‘. As…

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  • Top Tip Of The Week

    A Cracking Christmas Calling! Yes, I know it’s the end of August and you don’t really want to be thinking about Christmas just yet, despite many of the stores clearly believing you should be but now is the time to be sending your Christmas stories and articles out. It’s no good waiting until December. Magazines…

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  • Last week, you had the option of writing a story or poem about ‘darkness’, an ’emergency’ or ‘freedom’. Well, the ‘darkness’ theme certainly got you thinking. Some fantastic stories are published below. So, this week, we move on to ‘G, H and I‘. My themes for your stories and poems are ‘Grotto‘, ‘Hospital‘  and ‘Isolation‘. To…

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  • Markets For Writers

    This week’s market is an update on ‘The Global Short Story Competition‘. On my ‘Markets For Writers’ page, I detailed it as a monthly competition inviting stories of up to 2000 words on any subject but on checking the website, I’ve noticed it has recently changed to a quarterly competition. It’s still worth entering; after…

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  • I wonder how many calls this one received???!!!      

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  • Monday Motivations/The ABC Of Short Story Ideas Part Nine

    Mmmm, I knew it was coming – the Y and Z but it wasn’t easy to come up with short story themes; well, half decent ones anyway. I’m not sure you would appreciate ‘ yoyo’ or ‘zumba’ but you never know! Y is for Yearn: What is your character yearning for? Is it a person?…

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  • Top Tip Of The Week

    Take A Break Do you often feel frustrated when your short story doesn’t flow? Or perhaps you’re working on an article and the ideas and words won’t come. Maybe it’s a bigger project you’re working on, like a novel, but it’s just not coming together. Then is the time to take a break. Go for…

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