Tag: Competitions

It’s Beatrix Potter’s Birthday!

Jul 28, 2025

In a cozy burrow beneath an old oak tree, Peter Rabbit sat at a miniature wooden table, nibbling the end of a carrot thoughtfully. Around him were stacks of parchment, and ink pots made from hollowed-out acorns.

Outside, birds chirped and the wind rustled the garden leaves, but inside, Peter was lost in a world of his own creation — a tale of adventure, turnip heists, and cunning escapes from farmer foes. He called it “The Tale of the Bramblewood Bandits.”

Now and then, his cousin Benjamin Bunny would peek in, offering suggestions (“Add a hedgehog with a prickly temper!”), while Jemima Puddle-Duck stopped by to provide editorial advice (“You must revise the bit about tails — it’s all fluff!”). Peter was determined. He was going to enter the Michael Round Prize!

A Croydon Writing Competition?

Jan 8, 2025

We are thinking of running a writing competition this year and would be interested in views. We provisionally thought that the competition should:

  • be called ‘The Michael Round Prize’,
  • be free to enter,
  • offer a first prize of £100 and a second prize of £50,
  • open for entries in June and close in September,
  • be open to anyone (ie not just members),
  • accept prose pieces between 1,000 and 3,000 words,
  • require pieces to be on the theme ‘Far and Wide’,
  • be judged by a panel responsible for producing a shortlist with final placings decided by a ‘celebrity’ judge (if we can get one),
  • require entries to be submitted by email, and
  • allow only one entry per person.

All of these points are very much open for discussion – let us know your thoughts in a comment, email, or at our next meeting.

Update: we discussed these suggestions at the January meeting. Members were broadly in agreement but thought the suggested theme sounded old-fashioned, and that a small entry fee was worth considering. The idea of a competition anthology was popular and members thought we might need to establish a competition sub-committee.

This will be discussed again at the February meeting – if you have ideas for a theme in the meantime, please email them to ecorduff@hotmail.com