Pen To Print

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Competitions.

Pen to Print Awards 19
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 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 and Short Story Competition? 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.
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

First Line Competition

First Line Competition – The Freelance Bible

Competition CLOSES on Friday 30 April 2021 at 5pm

Prize:  Win one of two copies of The Freelance Bible by Alison Grade

To celebrate the workshop being held on 15 April at 6.30pm ‘How to Be a Great Freelancer’ with Alison Grade, we have two copies of her book The Freelance Bible (published by Penguin) to give away!

All you need to do is send your suggestion for a great first line for a story – to pentoprint@lbbd.org

Subject line – First Line Competition, along with your address so we can make sure we are able to send you your copy should you win.

Places for the workshop on 15 April are available to book go to: http://bit.ly/howtobegreatfreelancer

Details below:

Pen to Print: How to Be a Great Freelancer with Alison Grade

Thursday 15 April, 6.30pm to 7.30pm

This session will teach you how to build your successful freelance psyche and how you can use this knowledge to be strategic.
How to be a great freelancer with Alison Grade, author The Freelance Bible.
Click here to purchase your copy from Amazon.

Being a great freelancer is more than being great at working ‘in’ the work you do – you need to be great at working ‘on’ your freelancing.
In this session you’ll learn from author of The Freelance Bible, Alison Grade, how to work ‘on’ you freelancing and prepare yourself so you are best positioned to find the work you want to do. You’ll learn why freelancing is like dating and how you can use this knowledge to be strategic when winning new clients.

This session will teach you how to build your successful freelance psyche by maintaining a balance of:
• Skills – what skills and mindset does a freelancer need?
• Finances – what do I really need to live on? How do I value myself?
• Desires – how do I find and date clients to win business?

This session will give you a framework which you can use to work ‘on’ your freelancing and build a successful and sustainable freelance care.
Alison describes her key skill as transforming creative concepts into a business reality. She accomplishes this with the films she produces, the creative entrepreneurs she mentors, SMEs and freelancers she advises and in her recently published book, The Freelance Bible (Penguin).

CLICK to read and download the full competition details, rules and T&Cs

The LBBD Staff Writing Competition

Win a Kindle Fire Tablet

Competition CLOSES on Friday 28 May 2021 at 5pm

The London Borough of Barking & Dagenham is the home of Pen to Print. We know colleagues and their families are unable to enter the regular Pen to Print competitions, this is something just for you. We write so much for business why not give writing creatively and for fun a try?

We are looking for poetry in any form of no more that two A4 pages long on any subject you like.

Don’t fancy that, why not tell us a story? Write a short fiction story of no more that 1,000 words on any subject you like.

CLICK to read and download the full competition details, rules and T&Cs

New for 2021 - Digital Photography Competition

Win a Tablet PC.
The competition CLOSES on Friday 30 April 2021, 5pm

‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ is a phrase often used. Using your phone or your camera we would like you to tell a story in images. The subject can be anything you like. You can send us up to four images, but remember often the most powerful story is in a single image.  Submit your photographs with a short description of the story being told.

There are two categories Under 16s and Over 16s.

There will be an exhibition of the best entries to the competition and we are going to ask our writers to interpret these images in a short story or poem.

CLICK  to read and download the full competition details, rules and T&Cs

The Poetry & Short Story Competition

Win a Tablet PC

Competition CLOSES on Friday 30 April at 5pm

Write a Poem or Short Story on any subject you like.

Poems can be up to two A4 pages long and in any form..

Short Stories can be on any subject of up to 2,000 words.

CLICK to read and download the full competition details, rules and T&Cs

The Book Challenge

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.

The Book Challenge OPENS to new entries on 1 September 2021 and CLOSES on Friday 30 September 2022

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 TEN 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 monitoring from January 2023 to December 2023.

CLICK to read and download the full competition details, rules and T&Cs

The Audio Play Competition

NEW for 2021 The Pen to Print Audio Play Competition
In Partnership with Alternative Stories

Competition is now CLOSED

The Michael Feld Creative Writing Competition for Young People

Competition OPENS on 6 September 2021.

Details to be released later this year.

COVID-19 Statement
Last updated: 6 February 2021.
All Pen to Print activity is now available online only. 
Please do not post or hand deliver your entries. We currently only accept entries sent by email.

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
Pen to Print Writer