Gloucestershire Writers' Network

It's been a busy and an interesting week here. A small group of us have taken over the organisation of the Gloucestershire Writers' Network from Rona Laycock, who has run it very competently for the past six years. The annual highlight is the competition, which feeds into the Cheltenham Literature Festival; in addition to receiving monetary prizes, the winners and runners-up in the prose and poetry categories read at a special event at the Festival, one of the most prestigious on the national circuit. I've benefited hugely from my successful association with the competition over the last five years; it has opened up so many writing opportunities for me, so I'm delighted to be able to do something in return.

This week we've been talking about the competition on BBC Radio Gloucestershire and featuring in the Gloucestershire Echo. We're very anxious to have as wide an entry as possible from writers who live or work in the county - so if you're reading this and are Gloucestershire based, how about a poem or two or a short story on the theme of "Who Do We Think We Are?" by July 29th?! You can interpret the theme as widely as you like. Poems can be up to 50 lines, prose up to 750 words. The entry fee is a very modest £2.50 per item. A very generous donation has enabled us to offer two prizes of £200 this year, one for the winning poem, one for the winning prose - so it's worth having a shot at it!

The anthology of last year's
winning entries

You can find further details about entering on the following link - www.facebook.com/groups/GlosWriters