2008 Over The Edge New Writer of the Year competition

galway | arts and media | press release Friday February 08, 2008 12:28 by Over The Edge

Creative Writing Competition:
€1,000 in prizes plus major reading opportunity

Over The Edge New Writer of the Year 2008
sponsored by Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop, Bank of Ireland, Kelly’s Office Supplies and Des & Mary Kavanagh

The Over The Edge New Writer of The Year 2008 competition is open to both poets and fiction writers. The winner will receive a cash prize of €600, a spot as a Featured Reader at an Over The Edge: Open Reading, and the title Over The Edge New Writer of The Year 2008. The runner-up will receive a cash prize of €300, while the third-placed writer will receive €100.

This year the competition judge is Celeste Augé. Celeste Augé was born in Canada, but moved to Galway, Ireland when she was 12 years old. She writes both poetry and fiction, and is a graduate of the National University of Ireland, Galway’s MA in Writing Programme. Her poems have appeared in a wide variety of literary journals. She has read her work as part of Poetry Ireland’s Introductions series and also at the Cúirt Festival/Over The Edge showcase reading in 2006. In 2006, she was awarded the Publication Assistance Grant by Galway County Council. Tornadoes For The Weathergirl, a chapbook of her poems, was published in 2007. Her first full collection, The Essential Guide to Flight, will be published next year by Salmon Poetry.

Entries should be sent to Over The Edge, New Writer of the Year competition, 3 Carbry Road, Newcastle, Galway, Ireland with an accompanying SAE.

Entries will be judged anonymously, so do not put your name on your poem(s) or story. Put your contact details on a separate sheet.

Criteria: fiction of up to three thousand words, three poems of up to forty lines, or one poem of up to one hundred lines. Entries longer than these will be disqualified. Multiple entries are acceptable.

To take part you must be at least sixteen years old by August 1st 2008 and not have a book published or accepted for publication. Chapbooks excepted. Poems and stories entered in the competition must not have been previously published.

THE CLOSING DATE IS AUGUST 1ST 2008. A shortlist of eight will be announced in Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop on Wednesday, August 20th, 2008. The Over The Edge New Writer of The Year 2008 will be announced at the Over The Edge reading in Galway City Library on Thursday, September 25th, 2008. The winner will be a Featured Reader at a reading to be scheduled in Galway City Library in Winter 08/09.

For further details contact Over The Edge on 087-6431748, e-mail over-the-edge-openreadings@hotmail.com or see http://overtheedgeliteraryevents.blogspot.com