Sheppey and Sittingbourne Writers

Submissions are edited for content.  

Some rules:  No explicit sexual content.  Acceptable language only. 

Guidelines:

1  Material must be edited and of publishable quality. 

2  Printed on A4 paper - double spaced in a recognised font and formatted as below:

   For all prose work use " " for dialogue.  I prefer indented paragraphs rather than a line between but if you use line between make sure that each dialogue paragraph is separated as well.  Add a header and a footer with title and page numbers and your name.  Please put the title of your work at the top of the first page and mark the end with the word "End" at the end.  

  Poetry need only be single spaced aligned left - odd formats can be accepted but do not send shaped poems unless they are very good.

3  Send a covering letter with all work that includes your full name and address.  If you want your work back then please enclose a SAE otherwise it will go into the re-cycling bin.

4  All work must be up to a good standard, legible, coherent and should follow the submission guidelines for each form (poems, short stories, essays and extracts) and the editor reserves the right to refuse to publish any work that does not come up to standard.

5  If an article needs extensive editing, such as spelling and grammar it will be rejected.  

Poetry:  Verse in any form which from time to time may be requested to follow a theme.  Blank verse, comic, rhyming, sonnets, Haiku, narrative poems, lyrics and most acceptable forms.  Must be your own work.  For competitions you should stick to the topic and the length.

Prose:  Short Stories or Essays are welcome.  Short stories in general should be a maximum of 2000 words - somewhere between 1000 and 2000 is good or less.  Essays can be any length up to 2000 words although some shorter ones on the Blog will be acceptable.  For competitions again follow the requirements and be sure to stick to the guidelines. 

Novels:  As noted on the Home Page we encourage novel writers to tell us about their novels by sending us a synopsis - please tell the full story - and a blurb that will lead the reader into it.  We need to know a little about you and where the story came from.  What we will put on the site is a prologue if you have one, and your first chapters.  If the novel is already on sale you should also add that information to your blurb. 

General rules:   Send copies of your work only.   Print one side A4 double spaced.  Each page of a short story should be numbered with the title of the story in a header or footer.   A separate sheet with the author's name, address, telephone number or e-mail address (if asked for) and the list of titles should accompany each entry.

Rules and conditions of entry will be posted for each competition.