The 2025 competition is now open!

You can view the 2024 shortlist and winners at this link

2025 Contest will remain open until the 15th of January at midnight BST.

The Bournemouth Writing Prize is an annual international short story and poetry competition. Winners of this writing contest receive personal feedback from industry professionals and there is a cash prize for each category. 

Your work will be judged by industry professionals from the publishing world.

Edited and published by the staff and students of the MA in Creative Writing and Publishing at Bournemouth University the competition is entering its ninth year. To help the prize continue to grow and reach new audiences, we are proud to partner with The Bournemouth Writing Festival. April 2025 will see the winners and anthology edited and published by the Dorset-based indie publisher Dithering Chaps.

This year’s entrants will also be considered for inclusion in the inaugural issues of the new Bournemouth Journal launching in 2025.

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Categories

Short Story

• Word count: Maximum 3000 words. 
• What we are looking for: You can choose whatever style and topic you want! We want passionate storytellers who create great compelling characters and tell fascinating stories. Surprise us!

Poetry

• Up to three poems. Line count: Maximum 30 per poem. 
• What we are looking for: You can choose whatever form and theme works best for you! We’re looking for fresh and unexpected poems – be that about recent world events, stories of hope, or based on personal experience. You may send up to three poems per entry. All poems need to be submitted at the same time in the same document.

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The Prizes

Short Story

£500 cash prize, plus an hour long consultation with our short story judge, Greene and Heaton agent Laura Williams.

Poetry

£500 cash prize, plus an hour long consultation and feedback session with our poetry judges, indie publisher Dithering Chaps.

For Both categories:

Also, for both categories:

• The winners will each have 2 free tickets and an Open Mic slot of up to 10 minutes at the Bourn Jammy event on Saturday 26th April at the Pavilion Dance, where the band will improvise music to their winning entry. The Short Story winner will need to truncate their entry to fit into the timeframe. Winners must make their own travel and accommodation arrangements, and any associated costs.
• Each of the overall winners will receive 2 free tickets to any talk or workshop taking place at the Pavillion Dance over the course of the three-day festival.
• Each winner selected for the anthology will receive a free, physical copy of the resulting anthology. 
• Prizes are non-transferable and no alternative (cash or otherwise) will be given.

More about The Bournemouth Writing Festival:

This annual event inspires writers to write with free and ticketed practical and hands-on events, workshops, talks, walks and networking opportunities. A carefully curated selection of self-published, published and writing professionals impart their knowledge and advice to writers of all ages, backgrounds, abilities and genres, regardless of where they are on their writing journey, in multiple venues across Bournemouth Town Centre.

The 2025 festival takes place on 25th, 26th and 27th April and will have Writing on the Beach, a Poetry Hub, children’s workshops and a live music improvisation performance, alongside a programme of over 50 talks and workshops led by writers.

For all the details, visit BournemouthWritingFestival.co.uk

David Herring

David is Lead Editor of Dithering Chaps, a local indie publisher of poetry chapbooks, which will be publishing the competition anthology,  and feels very honoured to be invited to judge this year’s competition. A familiar face at poetry groups around Dorset, David has been published widely in literary journals including Orbis, New Isles Press, Stand Magazine and South Poetry Magazine. He was a prize-winner at the 2023 Bournemouth Writing Festival’s Open Mic competition and also was selected to perform at its 2024 Bourn Jammy event. 

Gena Herring

Gena is Associate Editor of Dithering Chaps. She graduated from the University of Aberystwyth with a Joint Honours degree in English and Librarianship, so books are her passion. As a publisher she brings a keen ear to the subtle soundscapes of poetry as well as an eagle eye for grammatical or typological infelicities. She is thrilled to share the poetry judging with David and looks forward to working with him to select and publish the winning entries.

What the judges are looking for:

• Originality. 
• Clear message. 
• Form, including its rhythm and structure. 
• Word choices, specific and personal. 
• Presentation, the flow of the language.
• Title, whether it’s compelling enough to draw the reader in. 
• Compliance with rules.

Please consider these guidelines when sending in your work. And yet…! And yet… a winning piece doesn’t come from simply following a checklist. There’s always that almost intangible ‘je ne sais quoi’ at play…

We can’t tell you what it is, but we both know it when we see it. Good luck!