Current Competition - SW ARTICLE COMPETITION 2024

Brief: Write an article in the form of a travel journal – or section thereof.

Word Count:  Max 1000 words 

Judge:  Andy Barrett
Andy is a musician and writer who spent 11 years as a trade journalist and editor in the musical instrument business. For the past ten years, he's taken to accompanying his annual holiday with a series of articles describing his journeys, the events and personalities experienced, and points and places of interest discovered en route.

Thoughts From The Judge

Entrants are invited to choose an event or two within a holiday destination (or journey), writing up the pros and cons experienced. The piece needs to be lively, enjoyable and entertaining while being as informative as possible about the subject or subjects. All this while maintaining the structure of a magazine or supplement article. 

It's important not to describe an entire holiday or trip, but one or two elements within it. The finished article should go towards illustrating why this vacation is recommended... or not.

Deadline:

MIDNIGHT SUNDAY Oct 20th 2024

Results:

Monday 2nd December 2024

Rules:

Open to members only.

One entry per member.

Email entry only.

No author’s name to appear anywhere on the manuscript.

Title of piece and page number to appear on each page. (Footer or Header)

Title on Page 1 (Please do not use the title of competition as a title)

Line spacing – 1.5

Insert word count at the end of your piece.

If you are unsure about the formatting of your entry, you might find the Word documents on our website about suggested layouts and formats useful.

Submission Rules:

E-mail your article as a word attachment to the Adjudicator (Lorraine)

Your file should have the same name as the title of your entry prefixed by SWART24. (e.g.  ‘SWART24 – ‘Wanderlust).

Once all the entries are in, the Adjudicator (Lorraine) will send them electronically to the judge

Please note that the Adjudicator (Lorraine) will only check that your file opens and not carry out any formatting or corrections on your behalf So please ensure you check that you have adhered to the rules and check you presentation, spellings etc.

You will receive an e-mail from the Adjudicator (Lorraine) confirming both they have your entry and when it has been received by the judge.

For this competition, work may be discussed amongst members, but is entirely up to the individual and done on a mutual basis between writer and reader.  Members should not discuss any other entries without the permission of the author to respect the privacy of those who wish to keep their work to themselves.  

Failure to comply with any of the rules may result in your work being withdrawn from the competition.

Good Luck



Slough Writers Competitions (in general)

Style guides can be found here: Format & Layout, Instructions

Each term and over the summer break the Group organises a competition for members. See below for the terms of the currently-active competition.

  • Article over the Autumn term.

  • Short Story over the Spring term.

  • Poetry over the Summer term.

  • Varied topic over the summer break.

An external judge is appointed and there is a trophy for the winner and cash prizes for the three winning entries. The Summer competition sometimes involves the participants critiquing and ranking the other entries.

For more information about our competitions and trophies, please read About us page.