Mad Hatters' Contest

THE FIRST MHR KNOCK OUR HATS OFF CONTEST

 

Mad Hatters’ Review will consider submissions in FICTION or POETRY commencing on MARCH 1ST, 2010 (12 a.m. USA EST) and ending on June 30th (11:59 p.m.).

First prize winners in both genres will receive $250 (each) plus publication of their entries in Issue 12. The winning works of 5 runners-up in each genre will also be published in Issue 12.

All winning entries will be published in a print anthology called “Knock Our Hats Off: A Little Book of Curious Delights.” Each winner will receive a copy of this deluxe collector’s item.

The terms “fiction” and “poetry” may be interpreted broadly. Take a walk on the wild side through our pages. Take liberties. Governments are taking them away from us, so we’re giving them away free.

Our honorable judges:

Cris Mazza, Fiction
www.cris-mazza.com

Sheila E. Murphy, Poetry
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheila_Murphy

Our entry fee and modus operandi:
$12 per entry via PayPal to madhattersreview@gmail.com.
Poetry: 3 poems max per entry.
Fiction: 3000 words max per entry.
By all means, enter as many times as you wish.

All submissions must be sent to madhattersrev@yahoo.com with the following information in the subject line:

• Your Name
• Genre (Fiction or Poetry)
• Title/s of submission
• Word Count

Submitted works should be copied and pasted into the exquisite corpus of your email AND attached as an RTF Doc. If you’re submitting visual poetry or visual fiction, attach your entries as jpeg/s or gif/s. If you absolutely MUST, submit these offerings in PDF format.

Pages of texts should be titled, but your name should only appear on the subject line of your email, as submissions will be read blind. We’ll ask for your bio and optional pic if you’re a first place winner or runner-up.

Simultaneous submissions are expected. Just tell us immediately if some other lucky editor has grabbed your gem/s. But please realize that we won’t refund entry fees.

Winning entries will be announced by September 15th. Please address queries to madhattersrev@yahoo.com (subject line: QUERY).

HAVE A STORY? WANNA GET PAID? Well you are in the right place. Enter our quarterly competition for a chance to win yourself $100! Competition Information: The XtremeTravelStories.com quarterly writing competition is a skill-based contest where participants submit either a travel story or free-lance report in any language, topic or category the author desires. The finalists of each cash prize give-away are decided by you, the viewer. At the end of each deadline, our staff will multiply the number of votes by the average 5-star rating found under the story or free-lance report's title (5 stars is the highest while 1 is the lowest possible score). The points of this equation make a total score. (For example, if a particular story has 10 votes with an average 5-star score of 4, the author's total is, you guessed it, 40). The top three highest scored stories and/or reports will be reviewed by our team of professional editors to democratically decide which author deserves the $100 first place grand prize. If there is a tie amongst more than three stories and/or reports, then all will qualify as finalists. The winner will be announced no later than ten (10) days after the deadline and will be notified through e-mail first before being displayed publicly on XtremeTravelStories.com. The 100 USD will be awarded to participant through PayPal, therefore it is necessary for the winning author to have a PayPal account. "Xtreme" is loosely defined by the author and can constitute an array of meanings. Basically, our editors are looking for creativity, originality and good writers with unique styles. Keep in mind, XTS is a site dedicated to travel stories and reports that you won't find anywhere else. So, remember this when submitting stories and/or free-lance reports because it'll only increase your chances getting published or, perhaps more importantly, 100 dollars richer. The XTS staff will coordinate with said winners to best accommodate payment transfer. By accepting payment, the author grants XTS permission to post the winning piece for a maximum of six months or until the conclusion of the next contest. Click here to read the competition terms and conditions.

2010 Contest

January 10th, 2010 by SLO NightWriters

San Luis Obispo NightWriters

21st Annual

500-Word Short Story Contest

and

Poetry (40 Line Maximum) Contest

1st and 2nd place cash prizes in both categories: short stories and poetry

1st Place: $75

2nd Place: $50

Finalists in Each Category Receive Certificates

***

Entries must be based on the theme:

TRUST/BETRAYAL

Writers are encouraged to interpret this theme as broadly as possible

for both Story and Poetry

***

All writers are eligible except judges and contest director.

Our contest is open to all writers (in English) worldwide, but current NightWriters members will be entered into a drawing for a scholarship to the 2010 Central Coast Writer’s Conference. New memberships that are combined with a contest entry will save $5.00, and will qualify entrant for the scholarship drawing.

JOIN NIGHTWRITERS!

***

CLICK HERE FOR COMPLETE CONTEST RULES AND GUIDELINES.

Deadline: All entries must be postmarked by April 30, 2010

Entry Fee: $10 for first story or poem, $5 for each additional story or poem

***

www.slonightwriters.org

Scholarship for 2010 donated by the

Central Coast Writers’ Conference XXVI

(Upcoming conference will be held Sept 17 and 18, 2010.)

For information, visit the Central Coast Writers’ Conference Website.

Too Hard for the White Folks? Americans and the Haitian Revolution

by Jacqueline Bacon posted on Wednesday, 20 January 2010One Comment

Toussaint L’Ouverture

Scholars as well as religious and political leaders have rightly condemned Pat Robertson’s racist and absurd claim that the recent earthquake in Haiti was punishment because the Haitian people “swore a pact to the devil” during their revolution in the 1790s to gain freedom from the French. It has been ably noted not only that Robertson’s remarks were bigoted and heartless but also that the “history” he alluded to was a crude misrepresentation.

But beneath the surface of Robertson’s remarks there is another underlying assumption, one both racist and ingrained in conventional American lore. In his bizarre and merciless condemnation of the Haitian Revolution, Robertson perpetuates an unfortunately all-too-common historical myth: that black people are incapable of freeing themselves, and must rely on outside forces to “save” them. 

This illusion has long been promulgated in popular culture and historical texts, from the representations of abolitionist leaders as white men to the white saviors of Mississippi Burning. The reality is in fact quite different—African Americans were the primary founders and innovators of antislavery activism in the United States and the architects of the Civil Rights struggle—but the misconception endures. Within scholarly circles, many historians have finally begun to attend to the important work done by African-American scholars such as Carter G. Woodson, John Hope Franklin, and Nathan Huggins, but cherished myths die hard.

Claims that white abolitionist leader William Lloyd Garrison “started” the abolition movement and influenced the thinking of his black colleagues (when in fact it was the other way around) can be found in books published in the last decade. It’s not difficult to figure out what is at play here and why these narratives persist: white supremacy depends upon the notion that freedom and rights, when attained, are “granted” to blacks by benevolent whites, who then can distance themselves from their racist history through their purported efforts at salvation.

The Haitian Revolution disturbs these comforting assumptions. The Haitian Revolution was, as C. L. R. James noted in his classic  Black Jacobins, “the only successful slave revolt in history,” and it was planned and carried out by the enslaved blacks of the French colony of Saint Domingue themselves, who effected their own transformation from “slaves, trembling in hundreds before a single white man, into a people able to organise themselves and defeat the most powerful European nations of their day.”

African Americans and other oppressed people, from the time of the Haitian Revolution until today, have been inspired by its success and the Haitians’ attainment of freedom and, ultimately, an independent nation in 1804. White Americans, though, were threatened in the antebellum period by the implications that their own investment in a republic dependent upon slavery was insecure; ever since, they have ignored the Haitian Revolution altogether, denied Haitians’ own agency in their struggle or even . . . well, we have all heard Robertson’s comments by now.

Frederick Douglass, who served as minister resident and consul general to Haiti from 1889 to 1891, aptly described white America’s responses to the Haitian Revolution, their discomfort with the black self-determination exhibited by the Haitian struggle for freedom, and the importance of a true vision of its history. Speaking in 1893 at Quinn Chapel, an important African Methodist Episcopal Church in Chicago, Douglass referred to the “coolness” toward Haiti by the United States, who refused to recognize Haiti’s independence until 1862 (after the secession of the Southern states), although France did so in 1825, with Britain following in 1833.

“Haiti is black, and we have not yet forgiven Haiti for being black,” Douglass noted; “after Haiti had shaken off the fetters of bondage, and long after her freedom and independence had been recognized by all other civilized nations, we continued to refuse to acknowledge the fact and treated her as outside the sisterhood of nations.” He did not disguise his anger as he described how despite the slaves’ heroic struggle which “made themselves free and independent,” American leaders continued to doubt “their ability to govern themselves” and demand that they “justify their assumption of statehood at the bar of the civilized world.” And he clearly articulated what a full understanding of the Haitian struggle means to African American—indeed, American—history as well as to the meanings we give the past:

You and I and all of us have reason to respect Haiti for her services to the cause of liberty and human equality throughout the world, and for the noble qualities she exhibited in all the trying conditions of her early history. . . . We should not forget that the freedom you and I enjoy to-day; that the freedom that eight hundred thousand colored people enjoy in the British West Indies; the freedom that has come to the colored race the world over, is largely due to the brave stand taken by the black sons of Haiti 90 years ago. When they struck for freedom, they builded better than they knew. Their swords were not drawn and could not be drawn simply for themselves alone. They were linked and interlinked with their race, and striking for their freedom, they struck for the freedom of every black man in the world.

Far from being bestowed upon them by others, Douglass insisted, “the freedom of Haiti was not given as a boon, but conquered as a right!”

Given this significance, it is perhaps not surprising that efforts have been continually made to rewrite this history, with Pat Robertson only the most recent example. And it is clear why such portrayals continue to be substituted for reality. Ralph Ellison put it succinctly and memorably in the mouth of one of his characters in the 1941 short story “Mister Toussan.” Two young African-American boys, Buster and Riley, who appear in various stories by Ellison, discuss Toussaint L’Ouverture, one of the leaders of the Haitian Revolution.

“Ain’t none of them stories in the books. Wonder why?” Buster asks. “Hell, you know why,” Riley answers. “Ole Toussan was too hard on them white folks, thass why.” Apparently the real history continues to be too hard for the white folks, threatening to complicate comforting beliefs about freedom and liberty. In their ignorance and denial, they fail to realize the debt all freedom-loving people owe to the efforts of the slaves of Saint Domingue over 200 years ago.

By Jacqueline Bacon

Jacqueline Bacon is an independent scholar whose work focuses on African-American history and rhetoric. She is the coeditor, with Maurice Jackson, of the new book  African Americans and the Haitian Revolution: Selected Essays and Historical Documents, recently published by Routledge.

Yet Another “Treme” Trailer – A Full Minute Longer & With Dialogue!

By Tambay, on March 17th, 2010

Posted one on Sunday (watch it HERE); now, 3 days later, here comes another, clocking it a 2 minutes and 37 seconds, a full minute longer than the previous one, and with mucho dialogue all the way through. Check it out below:

Fatima Meer, 1928-2010: `Regardless of how many years we have spent in this life, we must get up and shout'

In January 2000 Fatima Meer enraged ANC leaders by opposing the eviction of destitute families from council flats in Chatsworth, Durban. The ANC’s objective was to sell off the council housing. Meer helped to establish the Concerned Citizens’ Group to organise protests against the ANC’s anti-poor policies like privatisation and cost-recovery, which had led to violent evictions and water cutoffs. The ANC deputy mayor of Durban Trevor Bonhomme called Meer a counter-revolutionary. Watch the video above to hear her response.

On March 12, 2010, Fatima Meer passed away at the age of 82, the result of a stroke she suffered two weeks before. Meer was a long-time fighter against apartheid, racism and social injustice, both before and after the fall of the white minority regime in South Africa in 1994. Despite being a veteran of the ANC movement, and the author of the definitive biography of African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela (Higher than Hope, Penguin 1988), when the ANC in governemnt embraced neoliberalism Meer threw in her lot with poor and oppressed who, despite the change of government, continued to bear the brunt of inequality and exploitation. Below, Patrick Bond and Orlean Naidoo pay tribute.

* * *

By Patrick Bond and Orlean Naidoo, Durban

March 16, 2010 -- "Impoverished people, people who haven't got food on their plates. Now you are going to take away the roof from their heads. And where do you expect these people to go? You are just compounding their indigency. Then you move in with these security guards and dogs and guns. Now if this is not fascist brutality, what is fascist brutality?"

The scene could have been an apartheid-era forced removal, with a brave black activist haranguing the white regime. But this question was asked of the new [post-apartheid African National Congress] government of South Africa by Fatima Meer exactly a decade ago, at the peak of the Chatsworth housing battle, on the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) show Special Assignment.

The unity of poor black African and Indian people fighting the city government impressed Meer. She had come to Chatsworth, near Durban, a year earlier as part of the Concerned Citizens Group (CCG) of mainly Indian struggle veterans, campaigning for a vote for the ANC at a time when minority parties were gaining ground.

Always nimble, Meer did a quick U-turn. On a Sunday shortly before the 1999 national election, the Jankipersadh family faced the threat of eviction from a Chatsworth shack. Shocked by the living conditions she encountered, Meer stayed to fight, cajoling and threatening city officials to halt the Jankipersadh removal. KwaZulu-Natal Premier Zweli Mkhize recalled this incident at Fatima Meer's state funeral on March 14, 2010, at the Durban International Convention Centre.

Within a year, Meer would be sucking in the smell of post-apartheid tear gas that became so familiar in Chatsworth, her eyes streaming tears of anger, her throat coughing up disgust at the local ANC rulers whom she had helped put into power with unmatched courage during the bad years when she was beaten and banned.

A decade ago, the ruling party was not quite so corruption-ridden as now. But the tendency of Durban officials to crush poor people's aspirations was just as pronounced.

New oppressors

On the week of Meer's death, it may be Durban Mayor Michael Sutcliffe denying local civics the right to march; back then, it was the ANC's deputy mayor Trevor Bonhomme, bringing in the cops while accusing Meer and other organisers of harbouring shebeens, drug lords and brothels.

Within two years, Meer had not only helped organise the community to successfully resist. She managed to bring together all the fractious campaigning groups within Durban's poor communities against the World Conference Against Racism. At the end of August 2001, the Concerned Citizens Forum of grassroots civics allied with Muslim pro-Palestinians, her beloved Jubilee 2000 anti-debt movement, and other human rights groups from across South Africa and the world.

Rightly, they were infuriated that US Secretary of State Colin Powell, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and former president Thabo Mbeki had agreed to remove from the conference agenda two critical issues: racist Israeli Zionism, and reparations for slavery, colonialism and apartheid.

Meer and the late poet and activist Dennis Brutus led more than 10,000 people in a march against the UN conference that day, and suddenly the idea of the South African civil society taking on malgovernance was a reality.

That force, to be able to think and act locally, nationally and globally, was perhaps unique in the country's history. Writing her obituary in City Press, Meer's co-conspirator Ashwin Desai now laments that the new urban social movements which emerged in Chatsworth are a "spent force", but many others in Meer's circuit will disagree.

For example, Desmond D'Sa of Wentworth last month helped launch a new local-global campaign -- now more than 200 organisations strong -- to halt World Bank financing of Eskom with a R29 billion loan.

Aside from the police squad carrying her casket (we imagined her voice inside cajoling them for ongoing "fascist brutality"), one reason Meer's funeral seemed uncomfortable was because civil society was given no opportunity to celebrate the non-ANC causes she lent her prestige to.

She opposed a loan that Public Enterprises Minister Barbara Hogan -- who oversees Eskom -- insists we need to fund a new coal-fired plant (the world's fourth largest) and partial energy generation privatisation, to be paid for by huge increases in tariffs for poor and working people.

Environmentalists, labour and community opponents of the World Bank and Eskom join Meer's longstanding concern that the Worl Bank must first pay black South Africans reparations, for supporting apartheid-era white power when, from 1951-67, Washington financiers lent US$100 million to Eskom but zero African people received electricity.

Meer would have publicly ridiculed the statement by Hogan at a press conference on March 12, just as the great activist passed away: "If we do not have that power in our system, then we can say goodbye to our economy and to our country."

"Rubbish!" Meer would have shouted, impatiently explaining that by switching supply away to the common person, away from the over-consumers who get the world's cheapest electricity -- e.g. BHP Billiton -- we would meet many economic and social objectives, while avoiding construction of new climate-destroying coal plants.

Most myopic of all, perhaps, was her old friend Pravin Gordhan, now the ANC government's finance minister who in London recently made the startling claim that this would be South Africa's "first World Bank loan" -- when in fact there were several others since 1994 (Industrial Competitiveness and Job Creation, Municipal Financial Management Technical Assistance Project and the destructive Lesotho dams) as well as World Bank investments in a failed Domino's Pizza franchise and similarly well-conceived poverty-reduction strategies.

Neoliberalism

Meer's dismay at ANC graft, bling and its youth league leader's right-wing populism was noted by her brother Farouk at the funeral, but what went missing -- especially with Gordhan in attendance -- was how revolting she found the Treasury's ongoing neoliberalism and the dalliance with the World Bank, emblematised by the ANC's failed Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) program which World Bank staff co-authored.

Delivering the Harold Wolpe lecture at the Centre for Civil Society in February 2007, Meer observed that the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) had "usurped power in South Africa and the world" because they "are structured to exploit us".

Gordhan knows this, for he was the Transitional Executive Council economics representative who in December 1993 co-signed the $850 million IMF loan that pledged her friend Nelson Mandela's government to painful, neoliberal policies.

So we have now lost Durban's -- and South Africa's -- two most senior civil society scholar-activists in fewer than 80 days: Dennis Brutus on December 26 and Meer on March 12, and that probably pleases many in Washington and Pretoria.

As for the rest of us, the interview Meer did for SABC's Special Assignment in 2000 (above) provides as clear a mandate as we will ever hear, in light of how there is: "No commitment at all to the poor people. It's a very sorry state of affairs. Those of us who can stand up and shout, regardless of how many years we have spent in this life, we must get up and shout."

With this beautiful voice silenced, surely our responsibility now is to stand up and shout louder still.

[Patrick Bond and Orlean Naidoo work at the UKZN Centre for Civil Society, and Naidoo helps organise Chatsworth against injustice. Fatima Meer's interviews on civil society activism are posted at http://www.vukani.net. This article first appeared in the March 16, 2010, edition of the Durban Mercury.]

Mar 12, 2010 5:13pm

by Rashid Booker (videos)

6:14 Added last Friday

Joshua Bee Alafia 

that's y little homey from my neighborhood in havana, his name is Lukumi, and he's a grown man now. i met him when he was 10 yrs old, and he was shredding then. this clip is taken from a french documentary called Lukumi: master drummer or some shit. you may recognize pancho kinto playing bata... of Yoruba Andabo. he was my godfather's homey. Lukumi started playing in the group Raices Profundandas. strickty roots, yo... strickty roots... love that you brought this!

March 13 at 10:32pm

2010 Spring Fiction Contest

OnceWritten.com is looking for the high-quality, well-written short stories for our Fiction Writing Contest. Send us your best, unpublished piece for a chance to win $1,000.

To Enter

All entries must be original works that have not been published online or in print. Stories should generally not exceed 5,000 words, but we'd prefer writers focus on great writing, rather than strict word count.

 

Details

Prizes

   First Prize: $1,000 and publication

   Runner Up: $100 and publication

 

Deadline

   April 30, 2010

 

Reading Fee

   Daily Writing Sparks Subscribers: $15

   General Public: $20

 

Word/Line/Page Limit

   5,000 words

 

Notification

   July 15, 2010

 

Email
Submissions

Step 1

Complete the Entry Form below

 

Step 2

Make your payment of $20 by Pay Pal.

monica@oncewritten.com" type="hidden" />

If the corresponding reading fee is not received (either by PayPal or by mail, your story will not be considered.)

 

Step 3

Please email your contest entry to: '); document.write(EmailName); document.write(' "at sign" oncewritten.comowcontests "at sign" oncewritten.com.

Residency Requirements

No residency requirements apply; although all winning entries will be paid in U.S. currency. Winning writers MUST be able to accept checks drawn on an American bank OR Pay Pal.

 

Author Rights

OnceWritten.com does reserve the right to feature winning entries on the website and in publications promoting the website for the lifetime of OnceWritten.com. In the case that the author chooses to later re-print a winning entry in another publication, OnceWritten.com requests that written credit be given. Authors retain all other rights.

 

 

The Diana Raffle One Act Play Cometition

 

"TO ENTERTAIN"

Rules

1.         The theme of the competition is to write plays that “entertain” - please note that doesn't just mean comedy, it means a play that is focussed on pleasing, challenging, etc., or otherwise stimulating a reaction, pleasant or otherwise, from your audience. Any plays that contain anything that is illegal or, in the opinion of the organisers, could open NTP up to legal action of any kind will be disqualified.

2.         The first prize will be £100, and we reserve the right to offer other prizes as the situation arises. We have one other prize of "WriteItNow" software. Winning playwrights will be offered a New Theatre Publications publishing contract for the winning play, with a view to the play reaching more theatre companies and achieving performances

3.         Entry to the competition is free. There is no limit to the number of plays that can be submitted by any author and the competition is open to anyone, from anywhere. Closing date 2nd April 2010.

4.         All plays must be previously unpublished (but can have been performed) and the author must warrant (submitting a play is taken to mean you agree to these terms and conditions) that the work is his/her own and is not in breach of any copyrights or other agreements.

5.         Playing time must be between 30 minutes and one hour.

6.         Each play must be sent by email or disk, in Word format. The file name must contain the name of the play. (For example RomeoAndJuliet.doc - don’t bother with that title, it’s been done already!) Entries must be clearly marked that they are “for The Diana Raffle One Act Playwriting Competition”.  Entries should be emailed to info@plays4theatre.com or mailed to the address on our contact page. No responsibility will be accepted for lost submissions. An email acknowledgement will be sent to those entrants supplying an email address.

7.         A first page should contain the name of the play, the author's name (real and pseudonym if appropriate) and contact details and the approximate playing time. All other pages of the play must contain the name of the play in the header and a page number in the footer. The author's name must not be contained on any pages other than the first.

8.         The decision of the judges will be final and no correspondence will be entered into over decisions made. However, members (or anyone who decides to join as a member) will be offered a written critique of the work.

9.         Content must not break any laws.

10.       The winners will be announced at the end of May 2010 and they will be notified directly. A list of the winning entries will posted on our website shortly afterwards.

12.       NTP reserves the right to publish the winning entries for promotional purposes.

How to submit your entry for the Writers’ Village Best Writing Award spring 2010

1. Prizes total £300 ($485).

The prizes are: First Prize £150 ($242); Second Prize £30 ($48); Third Prize £20 ($32). Ten further prizes will also be awarded of £10 ($16) each. Prize monies will be paid via PayPal (if entry was paid for by PayPal), or by a cheque payable in sterling pounds if entry was paid for by cheque.

The top three winners will be entitled to accredit themselves: ‘Winner, 1st prize [etc], The Writers’ Village Best Writing Award spring 2010’, when approaching agents, publishers, editors (etc). Other winners will be entitled to use the phrase: ‘Shortlisted for the Writers’ Village Best Writing Award spring 2010’.

Winning entries will be showcased here on the Writers' Village site.

In the unlikely event that insufficient entries of reasonable quality are received to provide a fair basis for judging, no prizes will be awarded but all entrants will be returned their entry fees.

2. Types of entry accepted & judging criteria

Any form of prose fiction may be submitted up to 3000 words and in any genre (eg. mystery, romance, fantasy, crime, science fiction, children’s, etc). These may be short stories or a section from a novel in progress.

If a section from a larger work like a novel is submitted, please include the title of that work and a terse - up to 200 word - description of it, to give your entry a context.

The work should not have been previously published in print media at the time of its submission to the contest.

Playscripts and poetry may not be entered. (True, the definition of a ‘script’ or ‘prose poem’ may be arguable. But to ensure a level playing field for all entrants, anything that clearly appears to be a script or poem will be excluded and the judge’s definition of the term ‘clearly’ will be final :))

In judging entries, particular weight will be given to their power to move the reader, their originality and their demonstration of the craft skills of creative writing.

3. Deadline & timings

Entries must be received with payment by 12 noon (GMT) Wed 31st March 2010. Winners will be announced by 30th April 2010 on the Writers’ Village website.

4. Presentation format

Prepare your story exactly as you would for submission to an agent or publisher: a cover sheet with the story’s title, approx. word length, and your full contact address plus e-mail and telephone number.

The subsequent text should be in Times Roman or similar (no exotic fonts, please!), 11 or 12-point, double or 1½ spaced. Put your story title, name and page numbering in the header. (Presentation rules for the professional submission of work can also be found in The Writers’ & Artists’ Year Book, and similar manuals.)

5. How to submit entries

We would greatly prefer stories to be e-mailed as an attachment. Click here to e-mail us. Payment may also be made from this site by PayPal, using the PayPal button below

Important: in the Subject line of your e-mail put ‘Writers’ Village: spring 2010 entry: [your name]’. That way, the system will recognise it as a competition entry rather than spam :)

E-mailed attachments must be in the format: Word.doc (not .docx), or RTF or txt (plain text).

Alternatively, hard copy entries can be posted to: Village Guild, PO Box 6336,  Leighton Buzzard, LU7 6BJ, UK and a cheque payable in pounds sterling (GBP) enclosed with the entries. However, if you wish your work to be showcased on the Writers’ Village website, should you win a prize, your entry must additionally be e-mailed as an attachment around the time of entry or enclosed on a CD or floppy with your posted entry.

Entries will be accepted from anywhere in the world, provided that they are in the English language and that payment is received via PayPal or by a cheque in pounds sterling.

If an entrant makes more than one submission, the single best entry he or she submits will be selected to go forward for final judging. In this way, every individual will stand an equal chance of winning in the final round.

6. How to pay for your entries

The entry fee is just £5 ($8) per entry. You may submit as many entries as you wish but each must be accompanied by a fee of £5 ($8), paid either by PayPal or cheque.

Pay by PayPal: This is the fastest, easiest way to pay, especially if you want to be sure that your payment is received by the contest deadline. If you are paying your entry fee by PayPal, simply click on the PayPal button below and follow the instructions given. To submit several entries, please make each one a separate PayPal transaction.

Alternatively, you can send the fee directly from your PayPal account. Our PayPal address is: cwriting [at] btinternet.com (fill in the obvious bit in the middle!).

Or pay by credit card: Clicking on the "Buy Now" button below will also let you pay by credit card if you do not have a PayPal account.

Always be sure to include the note: "Writers’ Village entry spring 2010 [your name and the story title]" when the form asks you to add 'instructions for merchant'.

Or pay by cheque: If you pay by cheque, it must be made out to Village Guild and payable in pounds sterling (GBP). Enclose with the cheque a note that clearly indicates your name, postal address, e-mail address and telephone number plus the title(s) of the stories you are submitting.

Note: your submission can be enclosed as hard copy and mailed along with your cheque but if you wish your story to be showcased on the Writers’ Village site, should you win, it must also be sent electronically as an attachment around the time of entry or enclosed with your hard copy on a CD or floppy.

7. Disclaimer & Copyright

By the fact of entering, entrants attest that the work submitted is their own original composition, that they own the copyright, and that the work has not at time of entering been published in print media elsewhere.

Entrants will retain the copyright to their own submitted work and are free to submit it at any time for publication elsewhere, or for entry in other competitions.

Entries will not be returned. While every reasonable precaution will be taken for the safekeeping of entries, neither John Yeoman nor Writers' Village will accept responsibility for the loss or non-arrival of entries. Entrants are strongly advised to keep a copy of all entries.

If you would like confirmation that your entry has been received, either: for e-mailed submissions, tick 'Request read receipt' (under the Tools menu) when sending your email or, for posted submissions, enclose a stamped addressed postcard.

Queries

Please feel free to e-mail any queries you may have about the contest or the critique service by clicking here.

A tip: as always, start the Subject line ‘Writers’ Village’ so that your message will be given priority :)

Entry for Writers' Village contest spring 2010 £ 5  Please submit your entry fee here by PayPal or credit card for the Writers' Village contest spring 2010. If you are submitting several entries, please repeat this process for each entry. Be sure to add your name and story title in the 'instructions to merchant' when you submit each fee.