u3a creative writing competition 2021

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U3A Creative Writing Competition 2022 - Writer Who Put Pen to Paper Late in Life Wins!

Alysoun Owen, the Editor of the Writers' & Artists' Yearbook , was one of the judges for this year's U3A Creative Writing Competition. After much deliberation, we're excited to share the results.

It turns out that the small, yet mighty, Gilwern U3A's Creative Writing Group in Monmouthshire are celebrating again after one of them became the latest in the group to win a top award. 

Harriet Hall won first place with her story,  Cinderella - What Happened Next .  Prior to her win, Harriet overcame a life-threatening illness which left her in a coma and she ended up losing fingers and thumbs on both hands.  Her accomplishments are made even greater by the fact that she did not go to school and was, by her own admission, only ‘haphazardly’ educated at home.  

Speaking of her win, Harriet said: “ I could not be more surprised and delighted. I was initially thrilled to be short-listed and had not expected to go further. When I listened to the stories that came second and third, I was convinced that my story would be considered far too frivolous !” 

Formed during the pandemic, Harriet credited their creative writing group as the reason behind her competition success.   

“ Our meetings are informal and supportive ”, Harriet said. “ We are all woman of a certain age and can struggle with medical issues for ourselves and our loved ones.  But Kay (the group leader) never allows us to forget the main focus of our meetings and though we do not criticise each other's work, we all feel that our writing has improved enormously over the past two years. I know mine has .” 

If you're interested in entering the U3A's short story competition next year, head over to their site and become a member!

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The magic of writing.

To celebrate National Writing Day, Subject Adviser for Creative Writing Marcia shares why she find writing so effective at bringing people together.

From short stories to poetry, u3a members up and down the country find inspiration from writing groups.

On National Writing Day, Marcia, u3a’s subject leader for Creative Writing, shares why she finds it so effective in bringing people together.

“In the writing groups, we are all magicians”, says Marcia. “We conjure up something out of a prompt in a few words – sometimes just one word.

“We bring to our meetings characters and places, events, situations and stories from imagination mixed with memory.

“We notice the magic when we are rapt by what someone reads out, or when the same idea has come to more than one of us. Sometimes a few of us will have used the same unusual word not heard in everyday speech. Usually, the amazement is the variety of stories the prompt has conjured up.”

Creative Writing groups are open to everyone – from those who have dabbled in storytelling all their lives, to those who are putting pen to paper for fun for the first time.

Why not enter our Short Story Competition, which is back for a fourth year? The theme for 2023 is Decisions and we are once again delighted to be partnering with Bloomsbury.

The 12 finalists will receive a copy of The Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook, which is edited by Alysoun Owens who returns as one of our judges.

The overall winner will see their story published in Third Age Matters magazine, which reaches over 250,000 households, with a bespoke illustration to accompany it. They will receive a framed copy of their story as it appears in the magazine. The deadline for submission is 12 noon on Monday, 26 June. Enter on the u3a learning pages.

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Hayling Island U3A

Creative Writing

Availability: Currently closed to new members

Group leader: Fiona Bartlett - Contact Fiona

This group is not currently accepting new members. If you would like to join this or a similar group, please register your interest . That will allow us to notify you if a place becomes available. If enough people register an interest we will try to create a new group.

We all produce a piece of original writing each time, either fiction or non-fiction, sometimes around a theme chosen by members in turn, or sometimes working from 5 words chosen at random, and sometimes restricting ourselves to 500 words - not always easy to fit all your ideas in! At the meetings we read out our creations and receive constructive comments. The stories often produce interesting discussions and the meetings are always stimulating and good-humoured.

Some of us have submitted stories to magazines and had them published. We are always open to new projects.

We meet at 10.30 on the first Wednesday of each month.

We currently have no spaces for new members.

Writing Competition – Xabia Book Circle

XABIA BOOK CIRCLE ANNOUNCES 2021 MEMOIR COMPETITION

Xàbia, 15 July 2021—The Xàbia Book Circle, a literature discussion group based in Spain’s Costa Blanca, is sponsoring a competition on memoir writing. Open to everyone for a 10€ fee, the competition closes at midnight on 5 Sept. First prize will be 100€.

Entries, which should not exceed 4,000 words, need not be full-length memoirs or autobiographies, but may be fragments of a larger story. Such fragments may be old-fashioned jottings on a life, they may recount exotic travel, they may recollect interesting childhoods whether idyllic or hellish, may paint the portrait of a special person, and may offer up confessions or represent the very popular misery memoirs of the 90s and early Noughties.

Submissions should have a title but should contain no mentions of the author’s name (either as author, or within the text). They should be formatted in 12-point Times Roman or similar and double-spaced. Word count excluding the title should be shown on the last page. Entries may be submitted in a recognised word processing programme such as Microsoft Word, or as a pdf. They should be sent to [email protected] .

The competition will be judged by Book Circle member Christopher North and another judge, and the results announced at the Circle’s meeting on 5 Oct.

More details available at Xabia Book Circle or from [email protected] .

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