The Bournemouth Journal

Terms and Conditions

The Bournemouth Writing Prize

Please read the Terms and Conditions below carefully before entering. By submitting an entry, you are agreeing to these Terms and Conditions. The competition is being run by Bournemouth University (‘BU’). 

  1. Closing date for receipt of entries is 15th January 2025 at midnight GMT. All entries received after this deadline will be automatically disqualified. 
  2. Entries for the Bournemouth Writing Prize will also be considered for publication in the Bournemouth Journal.
  3. The Bournemouth Writing Prize is open to writers everywhere over the age of 16 (entrants must be over 16 years old on the closing date). 
  4. Any students and staff currently working on the Bournemouth Writing Prize and/or the Bournemouth Journal are ineligible to submit.
  5. All entries should be in English.
  6. There are no specific formatting requirements (font type, font size, line spacing, etc.). Writers may format their work in the way they feel is most appropriate. 
  7. The maximum length of submissions for the short story category is 3,000 words (does not include title); there is no minimum length. The stories may be literary or genre-based (Crime, Horror, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Historical, Romance, Children’s, etc.).  For the poetry category, up to three poems per submission, a maximum of 30 lines each; there is no minimum length.  The poem may be in any form the poet chooses. 
  8. Authors may enter the competition as many times as they like, upon payment of the entry fee of £10.
  9. Entries will not be returned. Please keep a copy. No corrections or alterations can be made after receipt of an entry. BU will not accept responsibility if contact details provided are incomplete or inaccurate; or for competition entries that are lost, mislaid, damaged or delayed in transit. 
  10. Entries must be entirely the work of the entrant. Any entry found to have been plagiarised will be disqualified. Entries must not infringe the rights of any other party. BU accepts no responsibility if entrants fail to comply with these Terms and Conditions and entrants agree to indemnify BU against any claim by any third party from any breach of these Terms and Conditions.  
  11. Entries must not contain defamatory, obscene, offensive or any other unsuitable material.  
  12. Submissions simultaneously submitted to other writing competitions are welcome – but please let us know as soon as possible if a story/poem is to be published elsewhere or has won a prize in another writing competition.  In such instances, the entrant’s work will be withdrawn from the Bournemouth Writing Prize.  Unfortunately, we are unable to refund the entrance fee. 
  13. Entries will be read and judged anonymously by the Panel; entrants’ names and contact details should not appear on the stories/poems. The stories/poems must be free of all personal information about the author. This includes age and address. 
  14. By submitting an entry, entrants agree to have their work edited and published, in both print and e-book formats, should they be the author of one of the stories/poems selected for the Bournemouth Writing Prize anthology. Authors retain worldwide copyright on their work (including film and dramatic rights) but grant the Bournemouth Writing Prize first publication rights to publish their selected story or poem, in both print and e-book formats. The entrant agrees that BU may need to modify entries and may at its sole discretion edit, adapt, abridge or translate the entry. 
  15. No competitor may win more than one prize. Entries will be read by a judging panel of writers/lecturers including MA Creative Writing and Publishing students at Bournemouth University. They will select a longlist for the final judging panel. The judging panel will select their shortlisted stories/poems and the top prize-winning stories/poems. The judges’ decision is final, and no individual correspondence will be entered into. Judges or readers will not comment on individual stories/poems or give feedback on individual stories/poems. 
  16. Prizes are allocated at the discretion of the judges. 
  17. The overall 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.
  18. 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.
  19. Each winner selected for the anthology will receive a free, physical copy of the resulting anthology. 
  20. The two overall winners will receive a consultation with the respective judge for up to an hour over video call, with a time and date to suit both parties.
  21. Prizes are non-transferable and no alternative (cash or otherwise) will be given.
  22. Entrants will not be contacted individually about the competition results unless they are selected for the shortlist. The shortlist will be announced on the website. The top prize-winners will be displayed on the BU website. Please see the Privacy Notice below for data protection information. 
  23. We will not be able to refund any withdrawn stories/poems; however, stories/poems may still be withdrawn upon an entrant’s request up to one week after the publication of the shortlist. Please email: bournemouthwritingprize@bournemouth.ac.uk
  24. Bournemouth University and the Bournemouth Writing Festival reserve the right to use photographs and video of entrants in their publicity materials. 
  25. Entry implies an acceptance of all The Bournemouth Writing Prize Terms and Conditions. Entries that fail to comply with these Terms and Conditions will be disqualified. 
  26. Bournemouth University and the Bournemouth Writing Festival reserve the right to amend these Terms and Conditions if deemed necessary in its opinion to do so. 
  27. Your personal data will be used by BU and the Bournemouth Writing Festival for the purposes of managing and administering the competition. For further data protection information, please see The Bournemouth Writing Prize Privacy Notice at the end of these Terms and Conditions. 
  28. These Terms and Conditions are governed by the laws of England and Wales. 

 

The Bournemouth Writing Prize Privacy Notice 

This privacy notice is for entrants to The Bournemouth Writing Prize, run by Bournemouth University and the Bournemouth Festival.

It explains how Bournemouth University collects, uses and shares the personal data provided in connection with the competition, and your rights in relation to such personal data. 

In this Notice, “BU” “we”, “our” and “us” refers to Bournemouth University Higher Education Corporation. 

As a result of your engagement with BU we will hold your “personal data”, i.e., information in a form that identifies you as an individual (often referred to as “data” in this Notice). 

BU is the data controller of the information it collects and processes as described in this Notice. This means that it has the core legal responsibility to safeguard the information and ensure it is processed lawfully. The law is set out in the EU General Data Protection Regulation (called “GDPR”) and a new UK law, the Data Protection Act 2018. In particular BU must: 

  • Take steps to ensure that the data it processes is accurate and up to date; 
  • Give you clear information about its processing of your personal data, in one or more Privacy Notices like this one; 
  • Only process your personal data for specific purposes described to you in a Privacy Notice, and only share personal data with third parties as provided for in a Privacy Notice; and 
  • Keep your personal data secure. 

How we collect your personal data 

We collect your personal data from the information you provide to us when you enter the competition. This may consist of your name and contact details (e.g., email address). 

How we use your personal data 

The personal data you provide will be used by BU for the purposes of managing and administering the competition, including providing competition-related information and notifying the shortlisted and winning entrants. 

BU students involved in administering the competition will have access to the personal data provided. 

We will publish shortlisted entrants’ names should we choose to publish their entries in our anthologies, in both print and e-book formats. The names of the category winners and those on the shortlists may be published on the Bournemouth Writing Prize website. 

The basis for processing your information 

When we use your data as set out above, this processing is necessary for the performance of the contract between you and BU (i.e., the contractual arrangements dealing with your participation in the competition). 

Your rights 

Under the GDPR you have a number of rights in relation to our processing of your data. In summary these are: 

  • Right to request access to your data as processed by BU and information about that processing (“subject access request”); 
  • Right to rectify any inaccuracies in your data; 
  • Right to request erasure of your data from our systems and files; 
  • Right to place restrictions on our processing of your data; 
  • Right to object to our processing of your data; 
  • Right to data portability: where we are processing data that you have provided to us, on the basis of consent or as necessary for the performance of a contract between us, you have the right to ask us to provide your data in an appropriate format to you or to another controller. 

Please note that the above rights are not absolute, and we may be entitled to refuse requests where exceptions apply. 

Exercising your rights as a data subject 

If you have any questions or concerns about our processing of your data, please contact the BU Data Protection Officer (DPO): 

Email: dpo@bournemouth.ac.uk
Telephone: 01202 962472
Address: Poole House, Bournemouth University, Fern Barrow, Poole BH12 5BB 

If you would like to exercise any of your rights as outlined above, you can contact the DPO as above or visit the Data Protection page on our website https://www1.bournemouth.ac.uk/about/governance/access-information/data-protection-privacy to access the relevant forms. 

We will always aim to respond clearly and fully to any concerns you have about our processing and requests to exercise the rights set out above. However, as a data subject if you have concerns about our data processing or consider that we have failed to comply with the data protection legislation then you have the right to lodge a complaint with the data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner: 

Online reporting: https://ico.org.uk/concerns/
Email: casework@ico.org.uk
Telephone: 0303 123 1113
Post:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF