{"id":7397,"date":"2025-09-21T10:32:59","date_gmt":"2025-09-21T14:32:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anovelapproach.ca\/submission_calendar\/?post_type=tribe_events&p=7397"},"modified":"2025-09-21T10:32:59","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T14:32:59","slug":"pfn-didcot-writers-writing-competition-the-theme-proximity","status":"publish","type":"tribe_events","link":"https:\/\/anovelapproach.ca\/submission_calendar\/event\/pfn-didcot-writers-writing-competition-the-theme-proximity\/","title":{"rendered":"PFN – Didcot Writers Writing Competition. The Theme: Proximity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our quarterly themed competition has a 500-word limit. You can send prose, script or poetry; fiction or non-fiction; a complete story or an extract of a longer work.<\/p>\n

Submissions will be read anonymously, and the Reader\u2019s favourites published on this site. Want to be a Reader for a future theme? Get in touch via\u00a0didcotwriters@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We aim to announce the winning pieces as soon as possible following the close of the competition, but please bear with us \u2013 our current pattern is to process several competitions at once followed by a lag (it is what it is). A single winner and a handful of other \u2018Reader\u2019s Choice\u2019 pieces will be published on this site shortly thereafter \u2013 usually a few weeks after the competition closes.\u00a0Read work selected as \u2018Reader\u2019s Choice\u2019\u00a0in previous competitions\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Our current theme is<\/strong>: Proximity<\/h3>\n

You could be close to your one true love, your worst enemy, your child, or someone you didn\u2019t realise was there at the time. You could be close to achieving something, near to death, close to a realisation or approaching the start of a whole new adventure. Whatever it is, we look forward to reading your responses.<\/p>\n

Deadline for submissions: 30th September 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n

Submission guidelines:<\/strong><\/h2>\n
    \n
  1. Submit your entry via the google form linked under \u2018How to Submit\u2019 below. Please note the entry fee for those who are not participants at our free online events.<\/li>\n
  2. Respond to the theme\/challenge\/prompt. If you\u2019ve got the perfect piece of work but it doesn\u2019t fit the current challenge, get in touch to suggest a theme for next time!<\/li>\n
  3. There is no lower word limit. The upper word limit (not including title) is 500 words.<\/li>\n
  4. There are no strict formatting requirements, but nothing too weird please.<\/li>\n
  5. Please title your document with your entry title, and also put the title at the top of the work. Do not include your name in the document as entries will be read anonymously. Full credit will be given to the author if the work is published.<\/li>\n
  6. No really bad swear words or explicit content, please.<\/li>\n
  7. Submissions are welcomed from around the world, but must be in English.<\/li>\n
  8. We don\u2019t mind simultaneous submissions, or if your entry has been published elsewhere in the past, but please make sure your work is copyright cleared for it to be published online if chosen. (For example, if you need to include the line \u2018first published in\u2026\u2019 to comply with a former publisher\u2019s terms, let us know.)<\/li>\n
  9. If your work is selected as winner or \u2018Reader\u2019s Choice\u2019 it will be published on our website. We reserve the right to make minor edits. We would like to leave your work on our site indefinitely, but if you would like it removed after a minimum of 12 months online please get in touch.<\/li>\n
  10. There will be no monetary payments to authors for work accepted as this is a non-profit competition run by volunteers; there is a possibility your work may be included in a printed\/ebook anthology in future \u2013 we will get in touch if we want to include your work.<\/li>\n
  11. We will keep your data in accordance with GDPR, and use your email address only to contact you to announce the competition winners and let you know of new competition opportunities (maximum one email a month after the announcement of winners). You can unsubscribe at any time, just email\u00a0didcotwriters@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    How to submit:<\/h3>\n

    If you have not attended one of our events (online or otherwise) in the last 12 months you will need to pay a fee of\u00a0\u00a34 per entry<\/strong>. If you are unable to pay this fee, all you have to do to receive a free entry is attend one of our events (there are lots of free events and many are online \u2013 see\u00a0bit.ly\/didcotwriters<\/a>\u00a0for further info, or email\u00a0didcotwriters@gmail.com<\/a>).<\/p>\n

    Pay the competition entry fee\u00a0via PayPal here<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0via SumUp here<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0(it\u2019s the same price to you in both places, but SumUp take less commission, so we like them better).<\/p>\n

    For multiple entries:<\/strong>\u00a0even for event participants only your first entry is free, no matter how many events you have attended. So for second and subsequent entries to the same competition please pay the \u00a34 fee using the link above. If you want to pay for multiple entries to the same competition you can do it as one transaction.<\/p>\n

    Submit your entry via the google form<\/strong>\u00a0here<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0(you will need to sign in).<\/p>\n

    Please make your document title the same as the title of your entry, and include your title in your document (it\u2019s not counted in the word count). All this saves us a headache later.<\/p>\n

    Want feedback on your work?<\/h3>\n

    If you would like feedback on your work (that is, a \u2018track changes\u2019 version to give corrections, comments and suggestions) one of our team can provide this for an \u00a38 fee. You can\u00a0pay the fee here<\/a>\u00a0(this link takes you to our SumUp store, let us know if you\u2019d rather pay via PayPal or bank transfer), then email your work to\u00a0didcotwriters@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    We cannot guarantee that feedback will be given before the competition closes (please allow two weeks after payment is received, and slightly longer during holiday periods), and we cannot guarantee that your story will be chosen as winner or \u2018Reader\u2019s Choice\u2019 as a result of our feedback. But we aim to provide supportive and constructive comments, letting you know what\u2019s good about your work, what our first response was as a \u2018cold\u2019 reader, where simple improvements can be made, and how you can make it shine!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    You could be close to your one true love, your worst enemy, your child, or someone you didn\u2019t realise was there at the time. You could be close to achieving something, near to death, close to a realisation or approaching the start of a whole new adventure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"_tribe_events_status":"","_tribe_events_status_reason":"","footnotes":"","_tec_slr_enabled":"","_tec_slr_layout":""},"tags":[],"tribe_events_cat":[3],"class_list":["post-7397","tribe_events","type-tribe_events","status-publish","hentry","tribe_events_cat-contest","cat_contest"],"ticketed":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anovelapproach.ca\/submission_calendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events\/7397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anovelapproach.ca\/submission_calendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anovelapproach.ca\/submission_calendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/tribe_events"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anovelapproach.ca\/submission_calendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/anovelapproach.ca\/submission_calendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events\/7397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7398,"href":"https:\/\/anovelapproach.ca\/submission_calendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events\/7397\/revisions\/7398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anovelapproach.ca\/submission_calendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anovelapproach.ca\/submission_calendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7397"},{"taxonomy":"tribe_events_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anovelapproach.ca\/submission_calendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events_cat?post=7397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}