Enter a short story, novel
extract or non-fiction piece
for bloc's new writing
competition. What we are
looking for is talent.
The winner will receive a
swanky new laptop.

Deadline: 30th June 2004
Entries should be no more than 4000 words and could be a complete short story, an extract or chapter from a longer work of fiction, or an extract or chapter of non-fiction such as a biography or factual piece.

A shortlist of five will be selected by tutors from the innovative Postgraduate Diploma/ MA Professional Writing programme at Falmouth College of Arts, all of whom are professionals from the writing world with expertise in different areas.

The winner will then be selected by Literary Agent Lesley Shaw and novelist and critic Matt Thorne (see below).

The winner will receive a Hewlett Packard laptop computer with Windows XP and will be invited to Falmouth Festival of Literature and Arts in September 2004 to receive the prize (transport from within the UK will be paid for).

The runner up will receive £100 worth of National Book Tokens (which can be spent anywhere) from The Falmouth Bookseller, the 2003 Independent Bookseller of the Year.

The top five entrants will also be offered a detailed critique of their submissions.

THE JUDGES

Lesley Shaw is a literary agent at Gillon Aitken Associates in London. Among the agency’s best-known clients are Sir V. S. Naipaul, Helen Fielding, Sebastian Faulks, Pat Barker and Germaine Greer. More recently Lesley has been promoted to Film and TV agent, though she is continuing to build her own literary list. Before she joined GAA, she worked in editorial at Hamish Hamilton and Viking (Penguin Books).

Matt Thorne is considered to be one of the hottest young literary talents around. Tourist, the first of his four novels (published when he was 22), was long-listed for the Guardian fiction prize, and the film rights to Eight Minutes Idle and Dreaming of Strangers have been sold. He co-edited an experimental anthology of new writing, All Hail The New Puritans, which featured fifteen up and coming young authors, each writing to a strict ten-point guideline. His latest novel Child Star has just been published in paperback and the first in a series of children’s fiction, Greengrove Castle, was published last month.

In association with Falmouth College of Arts

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR??

HOW TO ENTER

Please read the terms and conditions below and then click here for an entry form.

Terms and conditions

Entries are to be submitted by post at a cost of £5 per entry.

Cheques should be made payable to ‘Falmouth College of Arts’ and sent with completed entry forms to:

The bloc-online Writing Prize 2004
The Faculty Office for Media & Culture
Falmouth College of Arts
Tremough Campus
Penryn
Cornwall TR10 9EZ

Telephone: 01326 370400
email: patricia.liverod@falmouth.ac.uk.

COMPETITION RULES

The closing time and date for receipt of entries is 12 noon on Wednesday 30th June 2004.

The competition is open to everyone (with the exception of anyone connected to Falmouth College of Arts).

Entries must have been written entirely by the entrant and must not have been published in any form, in any part of the world.

The entry fee is £5 per submission, payable by cheque, which must be from a UK bank and made out to ‘Falmouth College of Arts’ with the sender's name and address written clearly, in capitals, on the reverse. There is no limit to the number of entries that any competitor may submit.

Entries should be sent to The bloc-online Writing Prize 2004, The Faculty Office for Media & Culture, Falmouth College of Arts, Tremough Campus, Penryn, Cornwall TR10 9EZ. Proof of posting is not accepted as proof of receipt.

Entries must be in the English language, single sided, with pages numbered and securely fastened, with each entry beginning on a new sheet. Entries must show no name, address or identifying marks other than the title - all such details should be on the completed entry form, a copy of which should be firmly attached to every entry. Entries are not returnable and entrants are advised to retain copies of their submissions. No corrections can be made after receipt by Falmouth College of Arts, nor any fees refunded.

Please enclose a stamped addressed postcard marked ACKNOWLEDGEMENT if you require acknowledgement of receipt of your entry. For the judges' reports (on the overall winning entry and four runners-up only) and full results in September 2004 – please enclose a stamped addressed envelope marked RESULTS.

Worldwide copyright of each entry remains with the author, but The bloc-online Writing Prize 2004 will have the unrestricted right to publish, without payment, the entries by the winner and four runners-up in any future anthologies that might be published by Falmouth College of Arts whether in print, online, or any other format, in existence now, or invented in the future. Falmouth College of Arts also has the right to publish, without payment, extracts from entries by the winner and four runners-up as part of its publicity after the event.

The judges' decision is final and no individual correspondence can be entered into.

The overall winner will be notified in writing by the end of August 2004 and the prize will be awarded at the Falmouth Festival of Literature & Arts on a date to be confirmed between 8th and 12th September 2004.

The four runners-up will also be notified in writing by the end of August 2004.

Entry to the competition implies acceptance of all the rules.