Competitions

The Bournemouth Writing Prize 2025

This competition is now closed.

We are proud to announce our involvement in the Bournemouth Writing Prize 2025,
which, this year, is being organised jointly by Arts University Bournemouth and
the Bournemouth Writing Festival.

We will be acting as judges for the poetry element and will again be responsible for publishing
an anthology of all the winning poems and short stories.

Bournemouth Writing Festival 2024 - ‘Lines in the Sand’

This competition is now closed.

We ran this competition on behalf of the Bournemouth Writing Festival. The poems and short stories written by the 40 winners of this competition appeared in our stunning anthology,
Lines in the Sand, available here.
In addition to this prize, each winner was given the opportunity to submit a sample from a collection of their own work,
for consideration for publication by Dithering Chaps.
We are proud to announce that we will be publishing the ‘winner of winners’, Helen Kay, early in 2025.
She was chosen from our shortlist, which included other great writing from:

Helen Chambers - Swift

Elliot Chester - Defile the Missile

Nicole Durman - Ghosts of Nightshifts Past

John Gallas - Fork Flats

Helen Kay - I Am Touched - subsequently renamed It Was Never About the Kingfisher

Katrina Moinet - The Accidental Feminist

Thank you to everyone who submitted their work. It was hard enough to select the shortlist,
so choosing just one person to publish was a real challenge!
We look forward to working with Helen Kay to publish her stunning collection.

Flash Fiction and Poetry Competition 2024
Lines in the Sand

* Please note, this competition is now closed *

The Bournemouth Writing Festival, together with Dithering Chaps and the Arts University Bournemouth, ran a competition for poetry and flash fiction submissions on the theme, Lines in the Sand.

The competition formally launched on 25th January 2024 and the deadline for entries was midnight on 29th February 2024.

The competition is now closed.

Judging has concluded and there were 40 winners.

The list of winners is published below.

The winners …

Well done to the winners and, of course, commiserations to those who weren’t chosen. You made the judges’ work very difficult by sending through your best and most creative takes on the theme, Lines in the Sand.

We loved every minute of the competition. It was a pleasure and a privilege for us to be involved.

We believe we have prepared the best anthology either of us have ever read! You can get your copy here …


BWF Poetry and Flash Fiction Competition - THE WINNERS!

  • Alan Summers: Snow Hill to Selfridges

  • Alice E. Bennett: How the Dressmaker of Bournemouth Feeds Her Family

  • Antoine Cassar: Island Seeker

  • Carol Maxwell: Woman Standing on Her Bathroom Scales

  • Charles Kitching: No Matter Which Way the Wind Blows

  • Craig Smith: Castle

  • Cristín Leach: Unstuck

  • Dave Martin: [Untitled]

  • David Longstaff: A Fishy Tale

  • E. E. Parkhouse: The Silent Highwayman

  • Elliot Chester: The Crescendo at Blue Beach, Gaza

  • Gareth Leaney: Drawn Together

  • Gary Krishna: Saint Marys

  • Georgina Titmus: Body Found on Seafront

  • Helen Chambers: Changeling

  • Helen Kay: On Hilbre Island, West Kirby

  • Helen Jane Campbell: Weather House

  • Henry Edwards: Might Love End Life

  • Joanna Bury: Rising

  • John Gallas: Between the Kettle and the Stars: a Line in the Sand

  • Josh Thorpe: The Scaregull

  • Julia Rapp: To My Future Ex-husband, With Love

  • Katrina Moinet: Môn Mam

  • Kim Waters: Blue Hospital Gown

  • Laurence Keim: Ghost Crabs

  • Michael Pettit: Tango

  • Neil Douglas: Cheese Sandwich

  • Nicole Durman: Hand in Hand on the Edge

  • Oonagh Montague: Harvest of Things

  • Órfhlaith Foyle: The Other Poet Drives a Black Mercedes

  • Partridge Boswell: Georgic

  • Robin Muers: I Witness Creation

  • Roger Hare: Paul Klee Said, 'Take a Line for a Walk'

  • Rose Lennard: It Was Seeing the Leading Actor Shaving

  • Sharon Clark: Shaping the World - Line By Line

  • Sue Norton: Ramblers

  • Terry O'Brien: Unholy Sonnet

  • Tessa Foley: Where All the Vibrators Go

  • Tina M. Edwards: We Are All Magicians When We Need to Be

  • Will Gillingham: Curl and Blackenposted here later this month (by 31st March 2024)