Be part of the nail-biting spectacle as six shortlisted authors – all previously unpublished –battle it out in front of an audience to win over our panel of experts. The winner will earn the right to have their novel critiqued by leaders in the industry.
Competition judges are: Sherry Ashworth (award-winning children’s writer and creative writing tutor at MMU), Julia Churchill (children’s agent from The Greenhouse Literary Agency) and Emma Young (children’s editor at Macmillan).
If you have a complete novel in the drawer, we are still looking for manuscripts for readers aged 8 to young adult until 21st May 2010.
Please contact Marnie Riches: marnie@cultureword.org.uk for details.
Wednesday 30th June, 2010, 1.30pm-3.30pm.
Great Hall, Friends Meeting House, Mount Street, Manchester, M2 5NS.
Entry for spectators is free. However, places are limited so please email Marnie Riches: marnie@cultureword.org.uk to book, if you plan to attend.
Suitable for: adults
Poetry doesn’t just live in books – it lives in the sound of the words, the voice of the poet. When poets read aloud, they breathe life into the poems. The Poetry Archive is a place where everyone can listen to poetry. Throughout the Festival, you’ll be able to explore the Children’s Poetry Archive and listen to poets from the present, and the past, reading their work. You can interact with the archive at special computer points throughout the Geoffrey Manton atrium, and award-winning poet Jean Sprackland will be around to tell you more about the Archive and answer any questions.
For more on the Children’s Poetry Archive, click here
4pm Thursday 1st July – 5pm Saturday 3rd July
Entry is Free
Venue: MMU Geoffrey Manton Building, Rosamond Street West
Suitable for: children and adults of all ages
Exploring the theme of illustration and visual narrative in children’s literature, this exhibition will showcase some of the best-loved characters from children’s books along with some of the most popular children’s authors and illustrators. Tours of this exhibition will run throughout the main Festival Open Day from the Geoffrey Manton Building.
Monday 28th June – Friday 9th July.
Open 10am-4pm Monday-Friday and 10am-4pm on Saturday 3rd July (this exhibition is closed on Sunday 4th July)
Free entry: no need to book.
Venue: MMU Special Collections, Third Floor, Sir Kenneth Green Library, All Saints.
Suitable for: children and adults of all ages
Curated by the Manchester School of Art at MMU, the theme of this fourth annual exhibition of work by children is narrative and storytelling through all forms of Art, Craft and Design.
The partner exhibition is ‘Reflective Stories, revisited’, an exhibition of sketchbooks and journals which document the artistic process. Tours of both these exhibitions will be scheduled throughout the main Festival Family Fun Day from the Geoffrey Manton building.
See the Holden Gallery for further details.
Exhibitor forms with details on how to take part can be found here.
Queries to Amanda Jones: email: a.n.jones@mmu.ac.uk tel: +44 (0) 161 247 1703.
Friday 2nd July – Wednesday 14th July 2010.
Free entry: no need to book.
Venue: MMU Holden Gallery, Chatham Building, Grosvenor Street.
Suitable for: children and adults of all ages
MMU’s annual creative writing competition for 14-18 year olds has resulted in work by more than 250 young writers being published in the All Write! anthologies.
See online versions of these, and other publications, here
The All Write! competition is free to enter and open to anyone aged 14-18 (Y9 and above).
The deadline every year is the end of July 2010.
The competition entries are judged over the summer and the best 60 or so are selected for publication.
All entrants are invited to our annual Celebration event at MMU in December, where young writers are presented with copies of their anthology by professional writers.
For information about how to enter and on other competitions that might be of interest to young writers, click here.
For further information contact: Kaye Tew: email: k.tew@mmu.ac.uk; tel: +44 (0) 161 247 1966.
Suitable for: age 16-19
The Manchester Writing School at MMU is launching the second Manchester Poetry Prize – a major international literary competition celebrating excellence in creative writing.
The Manchester Poetry Prize* is open internationally and will award a cash prize of £10,000 to the writer of the best portfolio of poetry submitted.
The competition is open to entrants aged 16 or over; there is no upper age limit.
A bursary for study at MMU will be awarded to one entrant aged 18-25 as part of the Manchester Young Writer of the Year Award *.
All entrants are asked to submit a portfolio of three to five poems (total maximum length 120 lines).
The poems can be on any subject, and written in any style, but must be new work, not published or submitted for consideration elsewhere.
The prizes will be awarded at a gala ceremony hosted as part of the 2010 Manchester Literature Festival.
To enter online, to download a postal entry pack, or for further information, click here or contact James Draper on +44 (0) 161 247 1787 or j.draper@mmu.ac.uk.
First prize: £10,000*
Deadline for entries: Friday 6th August 2010
Entry fee: £15
Judges: Simon Armitage, Lavinia Greenlaw and Daljit Nagra
Suitable for: age 16+
* Terms and Conditions apply.
The Portico Library, in collaboration with The Manchester Writing School and ACWE (Association for Creative Writing & English) is this year piloting the first Portico Prize for Young Writers – a new literary competition celebrating writing by young people in Northern England.
Schools and colleges from across the North West of England have nominated their Young Portico Writers, a number of whom have been selected to attend workshops with professional writers Sherry Ashworth, Rachel Broady and Mandy Coe, and then be mentored by MMU writing students to produce entries for the first Portico Young Writers’ Prize.
Winners in three categories – fiction, poetry and journalism – will be presented with their awards at the Portico Prize dinner in October 2010. Keep an eye on the Portico website for further details of this and of next year’s competition, or contact Lynne Allan : email lynneallan@mac.com.