BRIDGET WHELAN writer

for writers and readers….

Publisher looking for new crime thriller writers launches short story competition

To celebrate Oldcastle Books 30th birthday the publisher has set up a new short story competition for its crime fiction imprint, No Exit Press. It is open to any unpublished writer with a passion for crime fiction – be it the classic police procedural, a psychological thriller or gritty noir.

crime fiction

The judging panel includes bestselling author of the Geraldine Steel and Ian Peterson series, Leigh Russell; A is for Authors literary agent, Annette Crossland; and one of Britain’s finest noir critics, Barry Forshaw, author of Nordic Noir and Euro Noir. They say they are looking for original voices that epitomise the No Exit Press list: “strong, compelling writing that resonates long after the final page.”

FEEDBACK

There is a £5 entry fee and stories must be no longer than 3,000 words, written in English. Everyone who makes the shortlist will receive feedback on their submission – well worth the £5 entry fee. There is no guarantee that the winner will be published but they will have the opportunity to meet with Barry Forshaw, Leigh Russell and Annette Crossland, with the possibility of being signed by No Exit Press.

Submissions must be made using the online form at noexit.co.uk/shortstorysubs and must not have been published before – and that includes websites and self-publishing

TIMETABLE

Submission period: 25 May – 22 June

Longlist: 20 July

Shortlist: 1 September

Winner: 1 November

There are 28  rules – read them all – but the ones to take special care over are:

Stories submitted must be within the crime thriller genre.

Short story no longer than 3,000 words with sequential page numbering included.

Author biography in the allotted box, to include any blogs and/or social media information, any creative writing courses attended, prizes won, literary or media mentors and contacts, etc

The submission must be in Word format and must be submitted at the same time, attached to the form (the attachment each to be clearly individually marked as ‘short story’)

In the ‘Subject’ area at the top of the form, entrants should put the title and their (pen) name.In the body of the form, authors must provide their full name, address, phone number and biography.

Submissions must never have been posted on publishing websites, forums or access platforms such as (but not limited to) Wattpad, Smashwords, Lulu, FanFiction, CompletelyNovel.

Good luck!

photo credit: Zombies, le making of par Marc Del Piano P1040732 via photopin (license)

6 comments on “Publisher looking for new crime thriller writers launches short story competition

  1. The Story Reading Ape
    May 25, 2015

    Reblogged this on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog and commented:
    Bridget keeps finding these opportunities for YOU 😀

    • bridget whelan
      May 26, 2015

      Thanks for the re-blog Chris – everyone else this guy always has interesting stuff on his site…follow!

      • The Story Reading Ape
        May 27, 2015

        Very Welcome – you come up with a lot of great stuff as well Bridget 😀

  2. Pingback: Publisher looking for new crime thriller writers launches short story competition | The Proof Angel

  3. theowllady
    May 28, 2015

    Reblogged this on theowlladyblog.

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This entry was posted on May 25, 2015 by in News and tagged , , , , .

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