Local Events

This page contains details of literary competitions and events run by TVWC and other local organisations such as the Berkshire Music and Arts Festival. The results, will be shown here. The entries to TVWC competitions are added to the Library (if we have them in digital form). Details of other local and national writing competitions brought to our notice are circulated to members by email. Two of our events are in recognition of the contributions of late members, to the TVWC. You can read about them on our In Memoriam page.

info@thamesvalleywriterscircle.org

24 Apr 2018

Iain Pattison Short Story Comp

Entries on the theme of “Anniversary” must be not more than 1500 words in length. Your entry (hard copy only) must be submitted to Sally no later than the close of the meeting on Tuesday 22nd May 2018. Your name must not appear on the pages of your entry. Instead, attach a sheet containing your name and the title of your entry. Sally will keep track of who wrote which story but Iain will not know the identities of the authors when judging. Iain is a well known judge of writing competitions. He will provide a written critique of each entry which in the past members have found very helpful. He will place the best three stories. Readings of the entries (and the critiques if members are happy to share them) will be on 19th June and Sally will then announce the winners. There were 15 entries to this year’s event… …and the winners were: 1. Act of Remembrance by David Burnell 2. Christmas and Birthday by Helen Collett 3. Magic George by Walter Jardine

Feb 2018 Chris Mundy Memorial Poetry Competition 2018 Each entrant read their poem and comments were made both by our judge, Louise Ordish, and anyone else who had anything they would like to add. Louise also provided each entrant with a brief written critique of their poem. The results were as follows: 1st Flamenco Colin Ferguson 2nd 40 Shades of Blue Chloe Stoakes 3rd Middle Me Sally Johnson

Dec 2017 Arthur Redway Memorial Comp 2017 There were sixteen strong entries to this year's competition for a story of up to 1200 words. Members voted as follows: 1. Avalanche Barbara Smith 2. Let's Talk Walter Jardine 3. Some Problem Les Williams

Dec 2017 Christmas Homework 2017 For those with strong enough constitutions after the coming festivities Christmas homework has been set. Either short stories or poems are welcome, with a word limit of 1000. The theme is "what I found in my Christmas stocking".

Sep 2017 Hallowe'en / Bonfire Night homework 2017 A short story of up to 1200 words on anything about Hallowe'en or Bonfire Night. There were 17 entries but unfortunately only time to read 14 on the night. To keep up the momentum of the evening and complete the competition with the readings and judging all on the same evening the 14 were judged. Results were as follows: 1st Fields of Wheat Les Williams 2nd A Burning Question Joyce Robinson 3rd Life and Death Nick Swyft

2 Aug 2018

Summer Homework

A note from Les on this year’s competition. This year the theme is 'What a wonderful world, and funny too.' The word limit is 1250. I hope you have fun writing your story. Depending on the number of stories we will spread the readings over the first few weeks of our return, interspersed with other contributions.

26 Sep 2018

One Act Play Competition

Arthur Burke of Progress Theatre has changed the closing date for submissions to Nov 5th. He will attend our meeting on 13 November with critiques of the entries and will announce the first three places. Entries to be emailed to Arthur: arthurburke1@googlemail.com Rules remain as per the original email (TEN MINUTES MAXIMUM LENGTH etc).

National Events

The Writing Magazine has published a list of over 200 competitions during the year. They also publish winning entries in their Competition Guide 2019. We include a copy of this list, starting from Dec 2018, on a separate page. For a complete list for the whole year, contact the Writing Magazine.

5 Dec 2018

Arthur Redway Memorial Competition

The theme/title of the competition is ‘Silent Night’. Entries can be a short story or poem, any genre, maximum word count 1200. Send entries to Walter at webmaster@thamesvalleywriterscircle.org to arrive no later than 3 Jan 2019. You can also find this address on our website home page, near the top of the page. Please do not write your name on the actual entry. Everybody will then have until our first meeting back on 8th January 2019 to read through the entries - which will be uploaded on to our website Library page 2018 - and choose your favourites. Then email your votes for the top three in order of preference to Stuart on stuart@tilehurst.plus.com or intcoms@thamesvalleywriterscircle.org, and he will count up your votes. The top three stories will be read at the meeting on 8 Jan.

Local Events

info@thamesvalleywriterscircle.org

24 Apr 2018 Iain Pattison Short Story Comp Entries on the theme of “Anniversary” must be not more than 1500 words in length. Your entry (hard copy only) must be submitted to Sally no later than the close of the meeting on Tuesday 22nd May 2018. Your name must not appear on the pages of your entry. Instead, attach a sheet containing your name and the title of your entry. Sally will keep track of who wrote which story but Iain will not know the identities of the authors when judging. Iain is a well known judge of writing competitions. He will provide a written critique of each entry which in the past members have found very helpful. He will place the best three stories. Readings of the entries (and the critiques if members are happy to share them) will be on 19th June and Sally will then announce the winners. There were 15 entries to this year’s event… …and the winners were: 1. Act of Remembrance by David Burnell 2. Christmas and Birthday by Helen Collett 3. Magic George by Walter Jardine

Dec 2017 Arthur Redway Memorial Competition 2017 There were sixteen strong entries to this year's competition for a story of up to 1200 words. Members voted as follows: 1. Avalanche Barbara Smith 2. Let's Talk Walter Jardine 3. Some Problem Les Williams