The Bedford Competition

This is a competition that reaches out to help you achieve the recognition you deserve

We are an International Competition, open to everybody aged 17 or over, with prizes totalling £3000 including special awards for young writers and Bedford writers (Please see Rules). All winning and shortlisted entries are published by our partners, Ostrich Books. We donate proceeds to charities that support literary and literacy skills.

The short story competition is for stories up to 3,000 words. The poetry competition is for poems up to 40 lines.

Entrants can write on any theme.

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.