FlipSide Festival’s writing competition

FlipSide, East Anglia’s leading literary and arts festival, has been running a unique enviromentally-themed competition aimed at writers of all ages and entries have been received from all over the world.

The competition, which carries cash prizes, has been judged by leading authors Jackie Kay, the Scots Makar (poet laureate), Blake Morrison, writer and Professor of Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths College and Jon Canter, novelist and playwright.

Writers were asked to submit fiction, non-fiction or poetry with a green theme and to take just one letter of the alphabet as their starting point.

“We have been delighted by the number and quality of the entries we received,” says Liz Calder, co-founder of FlipSide.  “The range of ideas about the environment and the imaginative approaches have made for interesting and rewarding reading.”

One of the judges, Jon Canter, announced the two shortlists at a celebratory event on Sunday, October 1st at The Cut in Halesworth.

 

Over-16s Shortlist (alphabetically):

Paul Batty Q Gardens (prose)

Grace Blackwood S for Survival (prose)

Keith Brunton N is for Nursery Rhymes (poem)

John Hambley One Letter (poem)

Diane Jackman The Naming of Flowers (poem)

T.J. Marshall-Nichols Queuing at Yoshinogawa (prose)

Sue Ryder-Richardson A is for Amber (prose)

Carinya Sharples V is for Value (prose)

Francisca Staines Forty Minutes Each Way (prose)

Helen Storey A New Leaf (poem)

 

Under 16s (alphabetically):

Charri Jain The Tree with Sepia Leaves (poem)

Iona Mandel Ice Caps (poem)

Amelie Meek The Tale of the Carrot Tree (prose)

Dhylan Patel The X Animal Museum (poem)

Elsa Voak Vulture (prose)

The winners and runners up will be announced by Jackie Kay at FlipSide, Snape Maltings at 10.30am on October 7th.

Flipside 2017 Snape Maltings from tanya cochrane on Vimeo.

FlipSide 2017 ( www.flipsideuk.org ) opens with Margaret Atwood and includes talks with Jackie Kay, Ali Smith, Anna Pavord, Helen Macdonald, Anne Michaels, Álvaro Enrigue & Valeria Luiselli, Iain Sinclair and Lucy Hughes-Hallett in addition to a vibrant selection of music, dance, art, film, food and drink and events for all the family.

FlipSide was founded in 2013 by Liz Calder, Genevieve Christie, Louis Baum and John Christie.  In its inaugural year it welcomed writers from the UK and Brazil including Ian McEwan, Will Self, Milton Hatoum and Bernardo Carvalho.   In January 2015 FlipSide became a Registered Charity (1160164).  FlipSide is the sister festival of FLIP (Festa Literaria Internacional de Paraty), South America’s first and largest international literary festival.

The organisation’s aims are to produce the FlipSide Festival and a growing calendar of schools and community literature, music and arts events, opening a window onto a world of new cultural experiences.