streetcake experimental writing prize

ABOUT THE PRIZE
Supported by the Arts Council England and Writers’ Centre Kingston, this is the first year of an exciting new prize administered by streetcake magazine. We have been publishing quality experimental writing on our website for over ten years and we’re looking forward to expanding our remit and supporting young writers at the beginning of their writing career. With this prize, we seek to identify, recognise and develop young writers in the genres of short fiction and poetry.

This prize will be one of the first of its kind, aimed at young people (18-26 years old), who are responding creatively and extending the possibilities of the literature mold. Writers in this age band will shape the future of experimental writing and bring new ideas to this genre.

Please read some of what streetcake has previously published to give you an idea of what we mean by 'experimental' as this will give you a better chance of being successful!

The submission period will be open from March 4th 2019 and close on 14th June 2019.

PRIZES
There will be two age bands (18-21 and 22-26) in each category of short fiction and poetry, which means there
will be four overall first place winners. We will also award a second and third place winner in each category.

The first place winners will receive six personalised mentoring sessions from our dedicated and experienced judges. Other prizes include personalised feedback from the streetcake editors and book bundles.

All wining entrants will also be published online and in a hardcopy anthology, as well as being invited
to attend a winners’ event later in 2019.

ENTRY INFO
The entry fee starts at £1 for one entry (£1.75 for 2 poems / stories and £2.25 for 3 poems). Each entrant can enter up to 2 pieces of fiction and 3 poems. You can only enter once in each category. You must email the entry information to us with your entry (see rules for information).

Please read the Prize rules for full details and send your payment and entry/ies to:
streetcakeprize@gmail.com

We have also put together some FAQs

*Please note, any submissions that do not follow our guidelines will be disqualified. Any entries for the Prize should not be sent to our normal email.

If you want to spread the word about our prize, you can download this flyer

ENTER NOW

QUERIES/CONTACT
If you have any queries or you wish to enter the prize (after reading the submission info), please email: streetcakeprize@gmail.com

SPECIAL THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING:
Joe Ruddock, Sam Ruddock, Alec Newman of KFS, Spread the Word, the helpful staff at ACE, people who have already supported the prize, and our passionate judges.

Thanks also to our partner, Idea Store Whitechapel:

JUDGES
Here are our amazing judges / mentors:

Fiction - Ed Cottrell

Ed Cottrell was born and brought up in Oxford and now lives in Brighton. His fiction is published in journals including Brittle Star, Structo and Neon Magazine. He was the 2018 winner of the Desperate Literature Prize for short fiction, was shortlisted for the London Short Story Prize in 2017, and selected for Spread the Word’s 'Platform' artist development scheme the same year. He is an alumni of Writers’ Centre Norwich’s Escalator programme, was a writer in residence at Toji Cultural Foundation (South Korea) in 2015, and a visiting writer at the Civitell Ranieri Foundation, Italy, in 2018. He currently works as Digital Content Editor at Modern Poetry in Translation.

Fiction - Nik Perring

Nik Perring is a prize-winning short story writer and the author of five books. His work has appeared in many fine places all over the world including Smokelong, Word Riot, 3 :AM Magazine, and The Fiction Desk. It’s also been read on the radio and performed on stage. Nik’s also an editor, teacher of writing, and mentor for all ages, and is writer in residence at two high schools.
His online home is www.nikperring.com

Poetry - SJ Fowler

SJ Fowler is a poet, writer and artist. He has published seven collections of poetry, three of artworks, four of collaborative poetry plus volumes of selected essays and selected collaborations. He has been commissioned by Tate Modern, BBC Radio 3, Whitechapel Gallery, Tate Britain, the London Sinfonietta, Wellcome Collection and Liverpool Biennial. He is lecturer in creative writing and english literature at Kingston University and is the director of Writers' Centre Kingston and European Poetry Festival.
www.stevenjfowler.com

Poetry - Sascha Akhtar

Sascha Akhtar’s poetry has been widely anthologised, translated and performed internationally at festivals such as the Poetry International Festival Rotterdam, and Southbank Centre’s MELTDOWN festival London curated by Yoko Ono. Sascha has been part of poetry protests – Against Rape (Peony Moon, 2014) and Solidarity Park Poetry – Poems for the Turkish resistance (Ed. 2013). Her poetry collections include 199 Japanese Names for Japanese Trees (Shearsman, 2016) and poems with visual art as a Tarot pack entitled Only Dying Sparkles (ZimZalla, 2018). She is currently hard at work on translations from Urdu of a genre-defying pioneering feminist Pakistani fiction writer Hijab Imtiaz ( Oxford University Press India). Sascha has a few things coming besides in 2019 such as a chapbook The Whimsy of Dank Ju-Ju (Emma Press), a full-length collection Astra Inclinant (Contraband Press) & #LoveLikeBlood (Knives Spoons and Forks Press). Poems from #LoveLikeBlood will be part of the Blackpool illuminations in 2019. In March Sascha is teaching a workshop “Technicians of the Sacred: The Poem As A Magical Event,” at the Poetry School London. Her fiction is in Storgy, The Learned Pig, Tears In The Fence, BlazeVoxand Anti-Heroin Chic.
F: @ChoisirLeMotJuste Tw: @AkhtarSascha