Category: Competitions and Opportunities

A colourful treat for you this week, on the back of British author Lauren Child’s visit to Australia (Valerie interviewed her for episode 176 of the podcast – you can hear that here). As an author and illustrator, Lauren is the creator of many famous characters including Charlie and Lola, Clarice

The Hunter Writers Centre are running two writing competitions closing in June 2017. 2017 Grieve Writing Competition First up is the 2017 Grieve Writing Competition. The Grieve Writing Competition is in honour of Grief Awareness Month (August) with a prize pool of $7,000. Applicants are encouraged to submit a story

This week, thanks to our buddies over at Palace Films, we have 10 double passes to new film Neruda to give away. It opens in selected cinemas 25 May 2017. The film is directed by Pablo Larrain and follows real life 20th century Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, who is outlawed

Released earlier this year, this bestselling thriller is in a similar vein to 2015’s runaway smash The Girl on the Train. Penned by prolific UK author Sarah Pinborough, Behind Her Eyes has been shocking people around the world since its release because of THAT twist ending. No more spoilers! The

Just in time for Mother’s Day, we’re giving you a chance to have your cake and eat it too by winning Julie Goodwin’s gorgeous Essential Cookbook! Julie of course was the first-ever winner of MasterChef and has since become Australia’s best-loved home cook. In her latest book, she returns with

Last month in our weekly newsletter, we asked our readers to write us a story of no more than 99 words (not including optional title). Each story had to begin with the words “It hadn’t always been blue” and contain three other words: “clock”, “crisp” and “cuff”. Beyond this brief,

Thanks to Transmission Films, this week we’re giving away 10 double passes to new Australian film, Whiteley  – about the life of Australia’s most iconic artist, Brett Whiteley. Whiteley is a visual journey into the private life and creative legacy of its namesake, told “in his own words” using personal

$10,000 is up for grabs in the 2017 Australian Catholic University (ACU) Prize for Poetry. Now that we’ve got your attention, you’ll want to know more. It’s open to unpublished works (including not published on a website or blog) and must not exceed 80 lines. First prize is $10,000, second

Recently in our weekly newsletter, we asked readers to write us a story of no more than 99 words (not including optional title). Each story had to begin with the words “It hasn’t always been blue” and contain three other words: “clock”, “crisp” and “cuff”. Beyond this brief, it was

Hey – want to win SEVEN books for yourself or the special mum in your life? (Maybe YOU are the special mum…) Well, until 1 May, you have the chance to do precisely that, with our Mother’s Day pack giveaway! Now of course, mums come in all shapes, sizes and

Thanks to Transmission Films, we have a bonus competition this week – 10 double passes to the new film out 13 April 2017 – Colossal starring Anne Hathaway and Jason Sudeikis. Hathaway plays a woman who discovers that severe catastrophic events are somehow connected to the mental breakdown from which

The Little Bird Writing Contest, a competition for emerging short fiction writers, is now open! First prize is $1,000 (Canadian dollars) and there are runner up prizes, a publication opportunity and more. Now in its seventh year, the Little Bird Writing Contest is hosted by The Story is a State

Exciting news for our presenters lately, with book releases galore. And yet another that hit the shelves last week is book four in A.L. Tait’s popular middle-grade (ages 9-12) fantasy adventure and cartographer’s dream – The Mapmaker Chronicles: Beyond the Edge of the Map. A.L. Tait is of course none

“1917, Italy. Australian journalist Rebecca Quinn is an unconventional woman. At the height of World War I, she has given up the safety of her Sydney home for the bloody battlefields of Europe, following her journalist husband to the frontline as a war correspondent in Italy.” And so reads the

The Bath Novel Award is open to unpublished writers from across the world. First prize is £2,000. The winner and shortlisted writers will get introductions to literary agents. Opportunities like that don’t happen every day. It’s open to novels of every genre, for adult or young adult (13+) readers. Those

Okay, it’s late March – time to look 2017 squarely in the eye and get organised once and for all. And to help you achieve this, we have two empowering books for you – each with a rather different approach (serious vs hilarious) on getting your bad habits under control.

The Rachel Funari Prize for Fiction is back for 2017! This competition is open to women, female-identifying and non-binary writers and is hosted by Lip Magazine with the winner taking home a $1,500 cash prize and extra bonuses like a 12-month online subscription to Books + Publishing! That’s pretty cool.

This week we’re excited to give you the opportunity to win the latest thriller by an Australian author who’s definitely on the rise – Candice Fox. Her book Never, Never (a collaboration with none other than James Patterson) hit the top of the New York Times Best Sellers lists earlier

This week’s giveaway book is Making Sense by David Crystal – covering “the glamorous story of English grammar”. An interesting read for anyone who loves words and their origins (no Valerie Khoo, you can’t enter!). To win a copy of this book, we thought we’d ask you to make sense

To celebrate the Oscars which were held this week, we thought it apt to also celebrate the father of all things cinema in Australia – David Stratton. His new film, David Stratton: A Cinematic Life will be released on 9 March 2017 and thanks to Transmission Films we have 10