There’s a literary event that takes place here in Milton Keynes, describing itself as “a fabulous festival of books, words, writers and ideas that celebrates everything literary, bookish or wordy”. Part of the festival includes a flash writing competition, 500 words of fiction, creative non-fiction or poetry. I’ve been vaguely aware of it in the past, and pondered entering but never did. This year, the theme of ‘Tales from the City’ sparked all sorts of ideas for me, and the call for entries came when I could dedicate some time to writing a proper entry… I spent a couple of days putting together a story I was happy with and then, with the submission deadline looming, put together a creative non-fiction piece too. I sent them off, and today I’m delighted to announce that they were both shortlisted for the prize! I’m beyond stunned that the judges chose them both for inclusion – I’ve self-published before, but this is my first experience of being published properly. I don’t expect for a second that I’ll win, but getting to this stage is an absolute delight.
Update: So! My two pieces, A lily at the Rose and The Scent of the City, were both published in the Festival Anthology – and what’s more, The Scent of the City was selected by the judges as ‘Highly Commended’ !
If you’d like to buy a copy of the anthology, or read about the other shortlisted pieces, you can see all the details here.
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My very clever cousin! Fabulous to have 2 shortlisted and good luck for the 6th, look forward to hearing you’re a winner xx
Thank you, I was so pleased and very surprised they both made the grade! There’s a lot of strong competition but I’m keeping hopeful x