AWG/Freemantle Media Neighbours Script Training Award

Have you grown up on a diet of Neighbours and Home and Away? Does that song just loop around and around in your head?  Is the desire to write for TV and performance the thing that gets you out of bed each day? The Australian Writers Guild and Freemantle media are offering an incredible opportunity to work with the story department of the hit Australian TV series, Neighbours. 

For a 6 week period, two lucky writers will work as trainee storyliners and will each receive a $5000 stipend. Entry is by means of a 2 page outline of a story idea for the current characters of neighbours. There are helpful application guidelines and examples, and these should be strictly followed.

Entry fee: AUD$33 (incl GST) per application.

Prize: 6 week internship for 2 writers with the Neighbours Story Department, and a $5000 stipend.

Open to: Australian residents over 18 years of age.

Deadline: 4 May 2012

Wesbite: Australian Writers Guild Neighbours Initiative

Kathleen Julia Bates Memorial Writing for Children Competition

Is writing for children your thing?  The 8th Kathleen Julia Bates Memorial Writing for Children Competition invites Australian writers, both published and unpublished, to submit the first chapter (maximum of 2000 words) of their children's chapter book for readers up to 10 years of age. Fittingly, the competition remembers the two year old daughter of successful children's author, Di Bates. 

Entry fee: AUD$10 per manuscript.  Cheques/money orders should be made payable to Di Bates, and posted with the manuscript to PO Box 2116, Woonona East, NSW, 2517 or online via: dibates@pacific.net.au. Manuscripts should include only a cover page with the story title, word count, writer's name and contact details, including email. 

Prize: 1st Prize AUD$150, two runners up AUD$50 each. Results will be published in Buzz Words and all entrants who include a Stamped, self addressed envelope will recieve copies of the results.

Open to: Australian writers

Deadline: 30 March 2012

BBC International Short Story Award

To celebrate London's hosting of the 2012 Olympics, the UK Books Trust National Short Story competition will - for just one year - become an international competition sponsored by the BBC.

Entries must be in English, up to a maximum of 8000 words. Entries for the award may be unpublished or must not have been published prior to 1 March 2011. Please take care to read the comprehensive terms and conditions.

Entry fee: Free.

Prize:  GBP15,000 first prize, GBP2,500 runner up, GBP250 for 8 short-listed entries.  All ten prize winners will be read out on BBC's Radio 4 Front Row program in 2012.

Open to: Authors worldwide, ages 18 and over, who have had previous works of creative fiction published in the UK in the past.

Deadline:  27 February 2012

Website:     Booktrust - BBC International Short Shory Award

Australian Prime Minister's Literary Awards

The Australian Prime Minister's 2012 Literary Awards are one of Australia's richest and most prestigious prizes - about which we can all dream! There is a total prize pool of AUD$600,000!!! (Worth the exclamation marks!).  Authors who have had a book published between 1 January 2011 and 31 December 2011 in a range of categories can enter it for the Awards, though self-published books are not eligible.

Categories include: fiction, non-fiction, young adult fiction, children's fiction, Australian history, and for the first time, poetry!  It's important to read the varying eligibility criteria for each of the categories.

Entry fee: Free

Prize:  First prize in each category AUD$80,000 tax free; short listed entries in each category AUD$5,000

Open to: Citizens or permanent residents of Australia

Deadline:  1 February 2012

Website:    Prime Minister's Literary Awards

Memoirs, Ink. Memoirs Contest

Memoirs, Ink. is a US organisation dedicated to encouraging, promoting and supporting the genre of memoir, to preserving and publishing stories of the past, so those precious human memories are not lost to us all.

They are inviting stories, essays and memoirs based on personal experience written in the first-person (it's all about I, me, my!), but the type, genre and style is up to you.

Entry fee: USD$15 

Prize:  First prize USD$1000, 2nd = USD$500, 3rd = USD$250

Word limit: February deadline up to 1500 words; August deadline up to 3000 words.

Open to: Anyone, anywhere, writing in English

Deadline:  Half-yearly contest: 15th February 2012.  Annual contest: 15 August 2012

Website:    Memoirs Ink., Contest Guidelines 

The Next Big Author

TheNextBigAuthor.com is a joint initiative by a group of big-name publishers, UK Art Council-funded writeon.com, and writers themselves.  You submit the opening chapters of your book (completed draft or work-in-progress).   You retain the copyright of your work at all times.  You then review and rate fellow entrants' chapters, and have your own reviewed/rated in turn.  The more reviews you do, the more your own work will be reviewed.  Great practise in giving and receive critiques!

The 10 highest rating entries will then be reviewed by the major publishers, or leading UK literary agents, and feedback provided. Some past winners of this competition, which has a number of entry deadlines throughout the year, are now best selling published authors. It could be YOU!

Entry fee: Free 

Prize:  Top 10 rated chapter entries will be read and feedback provided by some of the world's most well known and high profile publishing groups.

Word limit: Opening chapters of between 5000-7000 words

Open to: Everyone, everywhere!

Deadline:  31st December 2011 (12 noon Greenwich Mean Time!)

Website:    TheNextBigAuthor.com

Closed - 7th Annual Writers Digest Poetry Awards

US-based Writer's Digest runs a series of writing competitions throughout the year for writers worldwide.  If you have something to say in a poem, as long as it is 32 lines or less, they would love to hear it! I managed to pick up a 10th place in the 2009 Awards - so anything is possible!

Entry fee: USD$15 for first poem; USD$10 for each subsequent poem.

Prize:  First Prize of USD$500 and cost-contribution towards attendance at the Writer's Digest Conference to be held in New York in January 2012. Cash prizes for 2nd (USD$250), 3rd (USD$100) and 4th to 10th (USD$25) places and gift certificates for 11th to 25th place.  All winners receive a copy of the 2012 Poets Market. The first 50 place-getters are also published in an annual Awards Collection. 

Open to: Poets everywhere.

Deadline:  1 December 2011

Website:  Writers Digest Poetry Competition

Closed - Fellowship of Australian Writers National Literary Awards

The Fellowship of Australian Writers National Literary Awards have something for everyone!  There are 20 different awards, including full length fiction, non-fiction, poetry, short stories, anthologies, short stories, scripts, anthologies and group writing. This is definitely an opportunity to flex your writer's muscles.

Entry fee: Free to AUD$15, depending on category.

Prize:  First Prizes in 20 different categories range from AUD$100 to AUD$1000. Major awards also have plaques and medallions.

Open to: Residents of Australia and its Territories, including specific categories for school-age students

Deadline:  30 November 2011

Website: FAW 2011 National Literary Awards