Competition submission criteria are as follows:

1. Entries must be your own original work and not commercially published. This is because the content of commercially published work is ‘fixed’ and is the copyright of the publisher, and therefore cannot be entered. Self-published work, however, remains the copyright of the writer and may be revised or rewritten as he or she wishes, and is therefore eligible to be entered.
2. Do not put your name anywhere on the entry. If you are writing autobiographically and need to include your name, please use a pseudonym.
3. Hand in your entry on time at the meeting indicated in the programme. If you cannot attend, you may submit your entry by email, before 17.00 on the entry date.
4. Prose: entries must be written within the specified word limit, and show the word count either on the cover sheet, if you submit one, or at the end of the manuscript in brackets. The word limit does not include the title or page numbers.
5. Poetry: entries must be within the specified line limit, excluding the title.

Formatting guidelines:

1. Use a conventional font, in 12 pt.
2. Use wide margins, minimum 2.5 cm.
3. Print on one side of the paper only.
4. Number pages and staple them together.
5. Double – or 1.5 – line spacing for prose entries; poetry should be single spaced.