Choc Lit Short Story Contest

For any of you South Africans living in the UK, or with connections in the UK (since the prizes are in UK currency), here's a contest you might find interesting.

Here's a great comp for anyone who likes money and chocolate: 

Choc Lit are looking for short stories of up to 1,500 words in which the central theme is chocolate - eating it, drinking it, cooking with it, or anything else. Let your imagination take flight!

PRIZES 
1st prize £200, publication on the author’s corner blog and a mystery chocolate gift
A Runner Up will receive £50 and another mystery chocolate gift

RULES 
1. Your entry must be a maximum of 1,500 words.
2. All work must be your own and not previously published.
3. Entry fee is £3 per story
4. All entries must be received by 31st January, 2012.

JUDGES
Your judges are Choc Lit authors Margaret James (The Silver Locket, The Golden Chain) and Sue Moorcroft (Starting Over, All That Mullarkey, Want To Know a Secret? and Love & Freedom). Both authors teach creative writing for the London School of Journalism and have published numerous short stories, including in the Romantic Novelists' Association's short story anthology. Both have regular columns, Margaret in Writing Magazine and Sue in Writers Forum.

HOW TO ENTER 
1. Please post your stories to: Short Story Competition, Choc Lit Ltd, Penrose House, Crawley Drive, Camberley, Surrey GU15 2AB. Please enclose a cheque for £3 per story - i.e. to enter 3 stories would cost £9. Cheques are payable to ‘Choc Lit Ltd.’
2. Or email info@choc-lit.co.uk with the subject header ‘Short Story Competition’ and pay your entry fee by Paypal atorders@choc-lit.co.uk.

You can find out more here.

So You Think You Can Write?

First we had New Voices, the X-Factor of romance writing, and now we have the aspiring romance writers' equivalent of So You Think You Can Dance.

So You Think You Can Write is in its second year, and is a week-long online conference run by Harlequin (parent company of Mills & Boon, and based on the other side of the Atlantic).

I'm blogging a bit late on this (I blame my frantic push to finish Once Upon a Time in anticipation of hopefully being on the New Voices follow-up list), so the better part of the SYTYCW week is already over, but there is a ton of stuff on the site for you to read, learn and share.

Best of all, Harlequin are offering another shot at publication through a contest. The deadline is 15th December, and you can find out more here.

Book pitches!

Savvy Authors is offering writers three chances to pitch their books to editors in the coming months. You don't need to be a member to join, but you should check them out. Savvy Authors offer amazing courses, workshops and other opportunities.

First up, on November 4th, Rona Gofstein of Ravenous Romance will be taking pitches. You can check out the details of what she's interested in here. Pitches should be left in the comments section of the relevant post on the Savvy Authors Blog on Friday.

Next is the chance to pitch to erotica publisher Red Sage Publishing on Friday, 18th November. This is a three line pitch, so a great chance to practice writing log-lines, and to work out what your story is really about. More info here.

Finally (and this is a biggie!), on Friday, 2nd December, agent Laurie McLean of the Larsen-Pomada agency (she's agent to the phenomenal YA author Julie Kagawa) will be taking 25 word pitches on the Savvy Authors blog. Yes, you read that right. Your novel summed up in 25 agent-grabbing words. You can read more here.

Finally, congratulations to our own ROSA member, April Vine, who has made the Top 4 in the Ellora's Cave pitch contest on Passionate Reads.

Call for Submissions!

As the competition frenzy turns to dust we move on with our writing journeys and what better way to do that than by looking at publishers actively seeking submissions? Here are the publishers and the criteria they're looking for:

Avon Romance

Around her hair she wore a yellow ribbon
She wore it in the springtime
In the merry month of May
And if you ask her why the heck she wore it
She wore it for her soldier who was far far away

Calling all writers! Avon Impulse is looking for manuscript submissions for a collection of Yellow Ribbon romance. Just as the song indicates, we’re looking for stories where a soldier is returning home from war. Who is waiting for him/her? What was left unsaid? Where do they go from here?

If you’ve got a story (up to 25k words), we want to read it. Be creative. Be sexy. Ready. Set. Go! For more information read their blog post!

Carina Press

Carina is looking for science fiction novellas with a winter holiday theme, to be published digitally both individually and as a collection in December 2012. The novellas should be from 18,000 to 35,000 words and feature science fiction elements as integral to the novella.

For more information on how you can submit, read the blog post! You'll have to scroll down to the post dated 6th October.

Contests Galore

In case you need to be side-tracked from the madness of pruned roses over at the New Voices website (for which entries are now closed), you can instead join in the madness of yet more contests ...

Nicola Marsh's Pitch Contest

USA Today bestselling author Nicola Marsh is running a contest on her blog this week. To enter, you need to have a completed novel or novella, and be able to write a one or two sentence pitch for your book. Entries close on Sunday 16th October.

What's the prize?
A critique of the first 5 pages of your manuscript not only by Nicola, but also by Liz Pelletier, senior editor and co-founder of Entangled Publishing.


Choc Lit Short Story Competition

UK-based publisher Choc Lit is running a contest for stories of up to 1,500 words, with a chocolate theme. Deadline is end of January 2012. There is a small entry fee. For more information, click here.

O! Magazine short story contest

The South African version of O Magazine (The Oprah Magazine) is running a short story contest for women's interest stories between 1,500 and 2,00 words in length.

The deadline is very soon (14th October) but the judges are absolutely awesome (Dr Maya Angelou among them!!) so it's an opportunity well worth looking into. For more information, click here.

Writing tips from the judges as well as full competition details are availble in the October edition of O Magazine, on sale now. 

Life Writing Contest deadline extended

THE SOCIETY OF WOMEN WRITERS & JOURNALISTS has announced that the closing date for entries to its OPEN INTERNATIONAL ONLINE ‘LIFE WRITING’ COMPETITION has been extended to 30th November 2011.

‘Life Writing’ is a fluid term used to describe the recording of experiences and memories, whether one’s own or another’s. It covers biography, memoir, diaries, letters and personal essays etc., and, more recently, digital forms such as blogs and email. It can also be linked with genealogical study when recording one’s life, it is common to become curious about the lives of others that have affected one over time and, if they have not recorded their own life, to start doing it for them.

The Word Count is 3000 words maximum BY EMAIL OR HARD COPY

The Competition is open to any writer world-wide of 20 years old and over.  The judges are Sophie King for category (i) 20/40 year olds and Katie Fforde for Category (ii) over 40s.

There are three prizes in each category. 1st £3000.  2nd £1000. 3rd  £500.

The entry fee is £7 (seven pounds sterling).