Competitions.

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

COVID-19 Statement
Last updated: 27 May 2020.
All Pen to Print activity is now avalible online only. All submissions to competitions must be done via email to pentoprint@lbbd.gov.uk.
All competitions have been extended and will now close on Friday 25 September 2020.
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

The Book Challenge is our premier competition with the fabulous prize of support to write and publish your own book!

We have already seen Challengers publish and win awards for 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 and Short Story Competition?

We also have the Michael Feld Creative Writing Competition for Young People aimed at 7 to 14 year olds.

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 below 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.

The Book Challenge - Write a book in a year!

The competition is now OPEN to entries and will CLOSE on 25 September 2020.

Poetry and Short Story Competition

This Competiton is now OPEN.
Submit a poem in any form or a short story. The competition CLOSES on Friday 25 September 2020

The Michael Feld Writing Competition for Young People

Competition is open now and will CLOSE on 25 September 2020,5pm.
Entries are welcome from young people aged 7 to 14 years.

Playwriting Competition

The Competition is now OPEN to new entries and will CLOSE on 25 September 2020 at 5pm

LBBD Staff Competition

The Competition is now OPEN to new entries and will CLOSE on 25 September 2020 at 5pm

Matchgirls Poetry/Flash Fiction/Phone Film Competition 2020

The Competition is now OPEN to new entries and will CLOSE on 31 December 2020, 5pm

The Ultimate First Line Competition

The Competition OPENS on Monday 28 September 2020 and CLOSES on Monday 12 October at 5pm

Pen to Print helps you find your voice.

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

Competitions.

The Book Challenge - Write a book in a year!