Together with local publishers Dithering Chaps and Arts University Bournemouth, the Bournemouth Writing Festival is looking for poetry and flash fiction submissions for its first publication!

The competition’s theme is “Lines in the Sand”, and winners will be published in the resulting anthology.

There are two categories of entries:

Poetry with a maximum of 30 lines (excluding the title)

Flash fiction under 400 words (excluding the title)

We are supporting the Boscombe-based charity Vita Nova by providing free entry to their writers who are vulnerable, recovering or need financial support. Your optional donation (via the payment portal) will help disadvantaged writers express themselves through writing.

Our judges are Dr Natalie Scott (Poetry) and Charlotte Grace Fodor (Flash Fiction) – both lecturers at Arts University Bournemouth.

We are keen to encourage quality submissions, so suggest writers to check their stories before submitting using Prowritingaid. They have free and paid versions and are the best writing software we know to help improve grammar, readability and check for repetition, ‘sticky’ sentences and suggest alternatives.