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Competition Rules

Each year the club and its sponsors promote competitions for which trophies and prizes are presented at the Annual Award Dinner. The rules for entering competitions are as follows:

• All paid-up members of the club, including postal members, are eligible to enter.
• There is an entry fee of £1 per competition to help with the administrative costs involved. You may submit only one entry to each competition.
• Entries must be received by the date stated - there are no extensions. If you cannot be at the club in person on that night, you can ask someone to hand it in on your behalf or send it directly to the Competition Secretary.
• All entries are to be judged anonymously so there are important steps to take in the submission of your manuscript:
  • It should be typed in double spacing, as per submission to an editor.
  • It should have a cover sheet with the title, word count (where appropriate) and a one word pseudonym. It is helpful also to include the name of the competition being entered. Novice writers should include the word ?NOVICE?
  • Each manuscript should be accompanied by a sealed envelope containing your name. Put the title of the piece and your pseudonym on the front of the envelope.

(A novice writer is a club member who, at the beginning of a season has not published anything other than unpaid work or letters to the press, has not previously won a club competition and has not been a member of the club for more than 3 years.)

• The entries are generally adjudicated by the speaker for that genre, who will also provide a brief critique of each piece submitted. Prizes (in the form of book tokens) are usually awarded to First, Second, and Third. See the Results page for a list of competition winners.
• If there are insufficient entries to any competition, it is declared void, although the entries will still normally receive a crit.
• As well as winners in individual competitions there are overall trophies. These are won by the people who score highest in the 'rankings'. This is done by awarding points for every competition entered and extra points for being placed, or coming first. There is a general trophy (Ishbel Robertson Trophy) and a novice one (Archie Quigley Trophy).
• There is also a trophy awarded for the Published Writer of the Year (Howat Associate Award), which is judged from entries in the Success Book.
• A more detailed sheet with competition rules is available from the Competition Secretary on request.