Croydon Writers

National Limerick Day

May 12, 2025

It’s National Limerick day!

There once was an old Croydon writer,
Whose verses got lighter and lighter.
I heard a strong rumour,
He was trying for humour,
Did he get there at last? Well, he mighta.

I mean, read your draft novel, out loud, in public. This year, Novel London has revived the idea of providing a kind of regular ‘open mic’ session at the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith where anyone can read the opening of their novel. Details of how to sign up are here – they talk breezily about being able to just walk in and read, but surely there’s a waiting list?

£75,000 for three pages?

May 2, 2025

A report in the Times today says a new prize offers £75,000 for just the first three pages of an unfinished novel.

The competition is being run by The Novelry, which runs writing courses, and the details are here. Submit your first few pages with an entry fee of £15: a shortlist will be selected and put to a public vote. The winner gets a free place on one of the Novelry’s courses to finish the novel, and apparently walks away still unpublished but with £75,000. I hope this doesn’t turn out to be £75,000 worth of credits for Novelry courses. More likely they hope the competition will fund itself, which would mean they are hoping for 5,000 entries – not madly optimistic, but it perhaps gives an idea of the odds on winning. Clearly they hope many entrants will sign up for their paid courses.

I don’t think I will be entering, but the tips provided further down the competition page are mildly interesting. They suggest a pretty conventional novel of the ‘Hero’s Journey’ type.