WRITING COMPETITIONS
IN IT TO WIN IT
Want to give your writing comp entries a winning edge? Searchlight Awards founder Kim Donovan has the insider info you need.
Kim Donovan
With Writing Magazine’s 2022 Competition Guide inside this issue and so many opportunities within reach, how can you increase your chances of winning? I’m the founder of Searchlight Awards and with the help of our amazing reading team and judges we read hundreds of submissions for each of our Writing for Children competitions. Several of us have been involved in reading for other competitions as well. I’m also a writer who has entered competitions in the past and achieved a small amount of success. Sitting on both sides of the fence has been enlightening and I’m going to share with you my top tips.
DON’T MISS OUT
Take every opportunity to get your writing noticed, whether that’s submitting to agents, entering competitions or writing for magazines. You never know who will read your story. Winning a short story competition can lead to a publishing contract for a novel, so be open to trying different things. Some writers have told me that self-doubt stops them from sharing their work, especially if they’ve been rejected by agents or have never shown their stories to anyone before. It might help to know that for many competitions the entries are read anonymously, so the readers and judges won’t know which story belongs to you until you’re announced as the winner! I can also reassure you that competition readers absolutely love stories. Sometimes they are writers themselves – everyone on our team is a children’s writer – and each time they begin reading an entry they are willing it to be fantastic. Everyone wants to be the one to find the winning story.