Pen To Print

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Competitions.

All competitions are free to enter.
(All Competitions Are Open To Entries From UK Residents Only)

Download an Entry Form Here
Download an Entry Form Here
Download an Entry Form Here
Download an Entry Form Here
Download an Entry Form Here

What Makes A Great Monologue?

Open to UK residents only.

The Challenge is to write a novel in a year!
Win a Tablet PC All finalists have the opportunity to get their completed book published.

This Competition has now CLOSED. We are now shortlisting for the books to be mentored through 2025.

We will be open to new submissions in 2025, for mentoring opportunities in 2027.

If you have an idea for a novel that you would like to write or have written a book and not sure what the next stage in the process is, this is for you. To enter send in your book idea we will review the entries with industry experts. Writers of the best ideas will be selected to be mentored by a professional writer who will work with you to complete your book and make it ready for publication. Your commitment is to 12 months of free mentoring.

Discover who won in 2024!

Core to the Pen to Print programme are our free to enter competitions.

The Book Challenge is our premier competition with the fabulous prize of becoming part of our free mentoring programme with support to write and publish your own book! We have already seen Challengers publish and win awards for their books, so if you have a story that you have always wanted to turn into a book why wait, have a go!

If you don’t have a book idea but love to tell stories or are more poetic, why not enter the Poetry, Audio Play or Short Story Competitions? Each year we will feature an additional competition which could be playwriting, screenwriting, photography or film making; so you can explore other forms of telling your story.

We are sure you will find inspiration to put pen to paper which you may be lucky enough to see in print, good luck!

Each competition has outline details and links to its specific Terms and Conditions, to make sure you are eligible please read these carefully before you enter.

Please NOTE by entering a Pen to Print competition the author is giving permission for Pen to Print to publish and/or broadcast their work, if it chooses, digitally or in print.  For these Terms & Conditions please CLICK HERE.
Any online and social media competitions may have different closing dates.
Always check the full Terms and Conditions of each competition for closing dates and entry requirements.
CLICK HERE for our How To Guide for entering competitions

Please do not post or hand deliver your entries.

We only accept entries sent by email.
If you have any questions please connect with us by email: pentoprint@lbbd.gov.uk or by phone 020 8227 2267

Pen to Print helps you find your voice. Hear a winner's story.

If there’s a book you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.

Toni Morrison

One should begin any work of fiction with the longest, most convoluted sentence imaginable, then try to beat that record.

Charles Dickens

Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the readers.

Stephen King

You don’t start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it.

Octavia E.Butler

Writing is a great comfort to people like me, who are unsure of themselves and have trouble expressing themselves properly.

Agatha Christie

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

Maya Angelou

Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.

Louis L’Amour

It is better to ask some of the questions than to know all the answers.

James Thurber

Creativity is contagious, pass it on.

Albert Einstein

To write successfully, one requires only a sharp pencil, a piece of paper and a hot cup of tea.

Agatha Christie

Poetry is when an emotion has found it’s thought, and the thought has found words.

Robert Frost

Writing lets you break boundaries because you can go anywhere you wish.
The voice in my stories is sometimes authentic, sometimes it is foreign.
Sometimes it is old. Sometimes it is new. Sometimes my writing is Muslim, other times it is Sikh and many times, it is no one’s religion because as long as I am telling the story,
I am in control.
I am whoever I want to be.

Farzana Hakim, Book Challenge Author
Pen to Print Writer