Poetry/Prose Competition - 500 Euro prize

The Battle of the Books is an international writing competition (open to poetry and prose) organised by the Swift Satire Festival in Trim, Co Meath. A prize of  €500 will go to the winning entry.

Closing date for entries is Tuesday 1st July, 2014. Poems: minimum 40 lines, maximum 60 lines. Prose: minimum 800 words, maximum 1,000 words. Entry fee is basically €5 per entry, though there is a bargain offer of €10 for three entries.

Travel is the theme of the competition, but the interpretation of ‘travel’ will be very wide indeed.

The competition is being run by the Festival, which will take place on Saturday/Sunday 12th/13th July. Shortlisted competitors will be invited to read their entries at a function in the town on the Saturday night. Writers who cannot attend will have their pieces read for them by actors or other writers.

The festival celebrates the life and works of the writer Jonathan Swift, who lived at Laracor, just outside Trim, for many years. This writing competition celebrates Swift’s wonderful talent as a storyteller.

A Prompt for the competition has been suggested by the organisers (although, like all prompts, it can be totally ignored). This comes from the very first page of Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. The Prompt is:
‘You prevailed on me to publish a very loose and uncorrect account of my travels’. 

In other words, anything goes – as long as it has some mention/whiff/suggestion of travel. It can be pure fiction or memoir or any other genre of writing. Humour is not essential but it certainly won’t do an entry any harm. Entertainment is highly desirable.

Note: previous publication elsewhere does NOT disqualify. The material must, of course, be the entrant’s own work.

Judging will be by Niamh Boyce who has blogged about it here.

Full details of the competition are on the Festival website here or may be had by emailing  paddysmithtrim@gmail.com
Postal and online entries are welcome. Online payment by PayPal is being set up on the website.