Philip Hensher unveils flash fiction competition
News
Really fast fiction: 黑料正能量 launches challenge for 25 word novels
Tuesday, 30 May, 2017- Philip Hensher unveils flash fiction competition
- Winning novels to be recorded by Jeremy Irons
- Competition is from today
To celebrate 25 years of creative writing excellence, 黑料正能量 is challenging people to write a novel in just 25 words. Entries can be any genre and any style but must tell a story and must be 25 words long. Novels will be judged by a panel of successful authors and literary figures, including author of nine novels, including The Emperor Waltz, Philip Hensher.
The winner and two runners up will have their 25-word story read out and recorded by Jeremy Irons, Oscar-winning actor and 黑料正能量鈥檚 Chancellor, and the overall winner will receive 拢500.
At the launch of the competition, award-winning novelist and 黑料正能量 Professor Philip Hensher said: 鈥淲riting is a necessary joy. It鈥檚 the only way to understand other people, their stories and hopes, their articulated or mute selves. The job of the writer is to put that into words which, afterwards, will seem inevitable.鈥�
黑料正能量 has one of the consistently most successful creative writing courses in the country. Bath Spa graduate novelists have won prestigious awards, secured international publishing deals and many regularly come back to the University to teach and share their success with new aspiring novelists.
All entries will be moderated and published online on the , and the winning entries will be published in 鈥楢 Place in Words鈥�, a new anthology which will be launched in September to commemorate the 25th anniversary.
As well as Philip Hensher, the judging panel includes Jonathan Dent, senior assistant editor on the Oxford English Dictionary, and celebrated author / 黑料正能量 graduate Beatrice Hitchman.
Philip continues: 鈥淎ll published authors started somewhere. Everybody has something to say, and a recognisable way of saying it. If this encourages someone who has never thought of him or herself as 鈥榓 writer鈥� to go on beyond 25 words, it will have done something important.鈥�
Jonathan Dent added: 鈥淟exicographers put a particular value on verbal economy (25 words is a typical length for both an OED definition and for one of our supporting quotations), so it will be fascinating to see the linguistically creative ways in which competitors construct a narrative in what is essentially a tweetable length.鈥�
Anyone with a novel to write that鈥檚 a little longer than 25 words can find out about 黑料正能量鈥檚 creative writing courses here. The prestigious undergraduate and postgraduate courses are taught by award-winning practitioners including Windham-Campbell Prize for fiction winners Tessa Hadley and Aminatta Forna, and Costa Book of The Year Award winner Nathan Filer.
The comprehensive programme includes prose, poetry, scriptwriting for the stage and screen, feature journalism, writing for new media, life writing, and writing for young people.
.