Dec 11, 2013

West Coast Eisteddfod 2015 Online Poetry & Short Story Competitions


Croeso/welcome to the 2015 West Coast Eisteddfod online poetry and short story competitions. The competitions began in 2009 as an online complement to our live event, the West Coast Eisteddfod, first held in Portland that year. The competition pages are linked below together with our 'Hall of Fame' winners page.
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The WCE competitions are free to enter and ( although it helps ) you need not be a member of AmeriCymru to participate. Nor do your submissions have to reference Wales in any way , shape or form. For a fuller explanation of the rules please read the post below and click through to the submission guidelines pages for poetry and short stories

Pob lwc/best of luck to all of our 2015 competitors.

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WEST COAST EISTEDDFOD ONLINE POETRY COMPETITION


West Coast Eisteddfod online poetry competition banner
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We are pleased to announce that the winner of the West Coast Eisteddfod Poetry Competition ( English language category ) will be featured in the prestigious international poetry magazine - "The Seventh Quarry" Peter Thabit Jones, the editor of the magazine which is based in Swansea, will feature the winning submission together with an appreciation and a picture of the author. The winner will also receive a free annual subscription to the magazine for one year plus the cash prize of $200 ( 130 GBP approx ). You may submit your entries in Welsh or English. The language categories will be judged separately and there will be a prize for each. Accompanying graphics are not permitted. There is a 200 dollars (approx 130GBP ) prize for the winners in each category. Final submission date is Nov 30th 2015.

All poetic styles and conventions are welcome ( limericks, however, will not be considered for a prize ) There is no upper or lower word limit. Entries need not reference Wales in any way , shape or form. You may submit up to five entries in each category and work which has appeared elsewhere is acceptable provided you have not surrendered your copyright.

The winner and his/her work will be featured on this site on what we hope will be a heavily trafficked page.

 UPDATE 04/11/15

Peter Thabit Jones ( editor, Seventh Quarry Magazine and WCE Poetry Competition  judge ) will feature the winning submission together with 12 pages of poems by the winning author (which would include a photo and a bio)  in the Winter/Spring 2016 issue of The Seventh Quarry magazine, due February 2016. The winner will also receive a free annual subscription to the magazine for one year plus the cash prize of $200/130 GBP approx.


This is a great opportunity to win international exposure. We must stress that the winner will be chosen from amongst the entrants to the WCE Online Poetry Competition and that contestants are NOT required to submit ten poems. The winner will be invited to submit ten poems for inclusion in the chapbook once the adjudication has taken place.


WEST COAST EISTEDDFOD ONLINE SHORT STORY COMPETITION


West Coast Eisteddfod online short story competition banner

The short story competition starts today. The theme of your story need not reference Wales in any way. You may submit your entry in either Welsh or English.  Basically you will need to write a short story between 1000 and 3000 words in length and submit it in accordance with the rules for site members or non-site members outlined below. Accompanying graphics ARE permitted but your entry will be judged solely on its literary merit. There is a US 200 dollars (approximately 130GBP ) prize for the winner. The final submission date is Nov 30th 2015 .   You may submit up to four entries.

We are immensely proud and pleased to announce that in 2015, author Mike Jenkins will judge the entries in the West Coast Eisteddfod Online Short Story competition.  Poet, story writer and novelist. Mike is a former teacher at Comprehensive school level for nearly 30 years and is now a fulltime writer and is available for readings and workshops at any time. Mike has lived in Merthyr for over 30 years and was winner of an Eric Gregory Award in 1979 and the Welsh Arts Council Young Writer’s Prize in 1984. Mike also won the John Tripp Award for Spoken Poetry and the 1998 Wales Book of the Year (English section) for Wanting To Belong (Seren, 2000), a book of interlinked stories for teenagers. He was a runner-up in Academi's 2009 Rhys Davies Short Story Competition.

He is a former editor of Poetry Wales and has co–edited Red Poets magazine for many years. His latest novella The Fugitive Three centres on three young people in a South Wales Valley’s estate whose stories intertwine and who, despite the odds, refuse to live lives of quiet desperation. It is fast-paced and written in a tight dialect in the third person narrative. Mike is a Fellow of Academi. Read his poem for Glyn Jones here.

Mike and painter Michael Gustavius Payne have recently been successful in an application to the Arts Council of Wales to tour a body of work across Wales in 2011 and 2012. The exhibition, currently being developed, will be titled 'Dim Gobaith Caneri', meaning “no hope like a canary” exploring ideas inspired by traditional Welsh idioms and phrases. Mike's latest book Barkin is a collection of poems and short stories published by Carreg Gwalch.'


 UPDATE 04/11/15

Today we are proud and pleased to announce that in future, in addition to the $200 cash , all WCE  Short Story Competition winners will be featured in the following years’ edition of  eto.

Eto 2 is now available on Kindle ( click here to buy eto 2 ). The second issue features a short story called ‘Chiaroscuro’ by Gaynor Madoc Leonard. Gaynor’s story won first prize in the 2013 West Coast Eisteddfod Short Story Competition



This is an exciting opportunity for aspiring short story writers to achieve recognition and publication and we would like to repeat that there are NO registration fees.


The winner and his/her work will also be featured on this site on what we hope will be a heavily trafficked page.


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