Writing Short Stories For Competitions

Writing short stories for competitions will encourage you to form an idea for a short story and develop it over a four-week period with the aim of submitting it into a number of competitions. It will cover the way competitions are judged and help you to shape a short piece of fiction that is capable of grabbing a judge’s attention. The course has been scheduled to allow you time to submit your story for the Bridport prize 2019; however, the course will discuss a range of other opportunities and encourage you to consider where your work might best be submitted in relation to the stage you are at in your writing career.

Dr Mark Ellis is a lecturer in Creative Writing at the Open University and has also taught at Worcester, Wolverhampton and Bradford Universities. He has been involved in the selection process of a number of competitions and anthologies including the prominent Huddersfield Literature Festival Grist Anthology. Mark is also the artistic director of Collective Unconscious, an immersive theatre company based in Nottingham. He has published two collections of short stories, a novel and a script for an eight-hour play.