We are so excited to be holding a writing competition about France and all things French and we’d love to hear from you. The competition is open to everyone and anyone, there is no entry fee and there are fabulous prizes including a ten week online writing class (of your choice) from acclaimed school of writing www.writingclasses.co.uk
You can read more about the competition, the judges (all writers and a publisher) here.
These are the Good Life France Writing Competition 2014: Rules and Terms and Conditions
IMPORTANT: Please put your name and email address clearly at the bottom of your manuscript.
Type and format your feature as follows:
• Written in English, translation into English of your own work is accepted
• A maximum of 1,000 words, no minimum (not including title, your name and email details)
• Add the word count to the top right of the first page. The title is not included in the word count
• Font: any font, 12pt, black
• Number the pages clearly
• A minimum of one image is required to illustrate your feature. It must be landscape, the size should be original if possible but minimum size is 1100px by 500px to enable formatting should you win and we publish your feature on the Home page of The Good Life France. Please clearly indicate if the photograph requires a credit and ensure you have permission to use the image if it is not your own. We can help with illustrations if you do not have an appropriate image. Do not embed photographs in the word document, images must be sent as a separate attachment.
• Save your submission as a Microsoft Word document with the post title and your name in the file name (typed exactly the same as on the document), for example: I Love France by Janine Marsh
• If your post is untitled, save the document with the title The Good Life France writing contest and your name. Please add 1 or 2 sentences of biography (not included in the word count) to your submission.
• Send your entry to editor@thegoodlifefrance.com
Important note: Amendments cannot be made to entries after they have been submitted, nor substitutions made. Correspondence or discussion about amendments will not be entered into.
Copyright: Worldwide copyright of each entry remains with the author, but The Good Life France will have the unrestricted right to publish the winning poems and stories, (including Highly Commended) with full credit to the author.
Judging: The judges’ decision is final and no individual correspondence can be entered into.
Judges are unable to comment on individual entries but may comment on entries which go through to the final round. The judging is fair and unbiased and conducted by each judge in isolation – the winner will be by unanimous decision. In the case where there is a tie – an additional judge of our choice will be appointed to pick the winning entry. The Good Life France reserves the right to change the panel of judges without notice.
Eligibility: The Prize is open to writers of any nationality writing in English, 16 years old and over at the time of the closing date.
Entries must be entirely the work of the entrant and by submitting you are confirming that the work is your own. Any evidence to the contrary will result in immediate disqualification.
Entries must never have been published, self-published, published on any website, blog or online forum, broadcast nor winning or placed (as in 2nd, 3rd, runner up etc) in any other competition.
If your entry has been entered in other competitions, provided it has not won a prize or been published, then it is eligible for The Good Life France writing contest.
Simultaneous submissions are allowed but will become ineligible should they win a prize or be published prior to the prize giving date. You must inform The Good Life France immediately should your entry be published or win a prize elsewhere.
Prizes: The Good Life France will publish the five entries that the judges consider to be the best. There will also be a “highly commended” section and finalists may be published.
1st prize: The winner may pick a course of his or her choice* from Writingclasses.co.uk. They hold three sessions a year and the winner can pick any course in any session within a year after winning the competition. If for some reason a course doesn’t run, we retain the option to offer a different choice (*the Novel Writing Class 2 is excluded from the prize).
You can read more about writingclasses.co.uk and their courses here.
Other prizes may be chosen by the winners from a selection:
• Signed copy of Deborah Lawrensons’s acclaimed book The Lantern
• Signed copy of Swallows & Robins – The Guests In My Garden by Susie Kelly
• Signed copy of L’Auberge by Julia Stagg
• Signed copy of Best Foot Forward – A 500-Mile Walk Through Hidden France by Susie Kelly, On Foot Across France
• Signed copy of Dunkerque To The Pyrenees by Tim Salmon (author of The Rough Guide To France and The Rough Guide To Provence)
• Creative Blogging by Heather Wright-Porto
