Derby Book Festival Flash Fiction Competition Launched

Published: 5 January 2023

Derby Book Festival has launched (on 4 January) its annual Fifty Word Flash Fiction Writing Competition.

They are looking for poems of up to fifty words, as measured on the website entry form (excluding the title).

For this year’s competition, for the 11 years and under category, they would like you to write a poem of up to 50 words. The Festival are keen to encourage children to write poetry and are delighted that as part of their community programme for schools, the current Children’s Laureate, poet and author Joseph Coelho, will hold a Meet the Author event for primary schools (Years 2, 3 & 4) at Derby Theatre on 8 June and all Derby City schools will be invited to send a group of children to meet him, plus the event will be live streamed so pupils can watch it in their schools.

You can interpret the theme of ‘Light’ in any way you wish, but your work must be original.

The theme has been chosen as it offers you many ways to interpret it:

• the light that is all around us and changes throughout the day
• the feeling of being light or the weight of an object
• the action of creating light - a fire or a candle

and you may find many more ways to use the word.

There are three age categories:

• **11 years and under - this year’s competition is for a poem of up to 50 words
• 12 – 17 years
• 18 years and over.

There will be one winner in each category. A panel of experts will judge the entries and the winning stories will be:

• illustrated by an Illustration student from the University of Derby in a competition for second year students
• printed on Festival bookmarks, which will be used to promote their next Festivals
• published on Derby Book Festival’s website.

The winners will each receive a £50 book token.

The closing date for the competition is 9pm on Wednesday 15 February 2023.

How to enter

You can find full details about the competition, including the terms and conditions and some helpful tips about writing Flash Fiction.

Teachers please note: this year you can submit multiple entries by email as a file containing all the stories from your class/school. You do not need to use the website form but can still do so if you wish to.

If you are sending a file by email, please send it to hello@derbybookfestival.co.uk by the closing date.

Education