ENTRY FORM
Please attach securely to your entry and hand in or post to your
local Midlothian or East Lothian Library by 17th August 2012.
Name
Address
Postcode
Telephone
e-mail
Title of entry
For Library Use £4 fee paid per entry
SPONSORED BY KESLEY’S BOOKSHOP
29 MARKET STREET, HADDINGTON, EH41 3JE
TEL: (01620) 826 725
Your personal data will be used only to administer the Writer of the Year competition.
Names of the authors of winning and commended entries will be published in various
media and may be used for publicity purposes.
Please note that the organisers intend to publish a broadsheet of the winning and
commended entries and to re-produce certain entries in other media (e.g. postcards, website).
While copyright remains with the author in each case, it is a condition of entry that
no royalty will be paid relating to these publications / productions.
Rules
1 Entrants must reside, or be employed, or study in East Lothian or Midlothian, and be
aged 16 or over. All registered members of the writing groups covered by Tyne & Esk
Writers are also eligible to enter.
2 There are two categories – PROSE and POETRY. Prose includes short stories,
articles, flash fiction, freestanding extracts from novels or novellas provided they lie
within the stated rules of the competition. Poetry can be in English, Scots or dialect.
3 Each entrant is entitled to submit one entry (of a single prose piece) in the PROSE
category and one entry (of up to two poems) in the POETRY category.
4 A completed entry form must be attached to each submission, and an entry fee of
£4 will be payable for each entry.
5 Entries should be handed in or posted to any library in East Lothian or Midlothian.
6. Entries must be original work, hitherto unpublished, and typed or printed on one
side only of A4 paper.
7 Prose entries must not exceed 2,000 words. Each poem must not exceed 40 lines.
8 Where more than one page is submitted, pages should be numbered and clipped
together securely (not stapled).
9 No name, address or other identifying mark should appear on the typescript but the
title of the piece should appear on each page and each prose entry should be marked
with its number of words.
10 The judges’ decisions are final and judges will be unable to enter into correspondence
or offer individual feedback.
11 There will be a 1ST prize for prose writing and a first prize for poetry and the winners will
receive a £40 book token. The title of ‘Writer of the Year’ (and the Alison Kinnaird Trophy
with £100 cash prize) will be awarded to one of these winning entrants. There will be a
2ND prize for both prose and poetry as well as a highly commended and winners will
recieve a £20 book token and a £10 book token respectively.
12 The closing date for entries is Friday 17th August, 2012.
Poetry judge, Gerry Cambridge was born in England but has spent most of his life in
Scotland. He has had a number of writing residencies. He is the founder of The Dark
Horse, a Scottish – American poetry magazine with an international reputation.
Prose judge, Cathy MacPhail, is a best-selling children’s author, tutor and speaker.
She has been the president of the Scottish Association of Writers and the chairperson
of the Scottish Children’s Writers and Illustrators. She was born in Greenock and
continues to live there.
Writer of the Year 2012
Poetry judge, Gerry Cambridge, is a poet, essayist, editor
and sometime-harmonica player with substantial interest
in print design and typography as well as a background in
natural history photography. His publications include Notes
for Lighting a Fire (Happenstance Press, 2012) Aves (Essence
Press, 2007; reprinted 2008), a collection of prose poems
about wild birds; Madame Fi Fi’s Farewell and Other Poems
(Luath, 2003); and ‘Nothing but Heather!’ : Scottish Nature
in Poems, Photographs and Prose (Luath, 1999; 2nd edition,
2008). In 2004, his poem, ‘Blue Sky, Green Grass,’ won the
Calum MacDonald Memorial Award.
Gerry says, “I will be looking for poems in which the
imagination, technique and emotion operate in harmony
together to form fully achieved works of art.”
Prose judge, Cathy MacPhail, has written over 35 books for
children and young adults published both here and abroad.
She has also had two comedy series on Radio 2, written 2
romantic novels and has had many short stories broadcast
on radio as well as published.
She has just started a new series of psychological thrillers
about a girl called Tyler Lawless, a heroine to the unlawfully
dead!
Cathy says, “I will be looking for something that grabs
me from the first sentence and keeps me hooked all
the way through.”
Download the entry form here.
