Thanks once again to everyone who entered the 2018 First Chapter Competition.
Amanda, Louise and Sophie have read the 234 entries and been impressed with the overall standard of submissions. Although some of the first chapters definitely felt like they were being sent out too soon and needed more editing.
The longlisted stories are shown below and if yours is there please don’t let us know the name of it as readings are done anonymously until the shortlist has been chosen.
Longlist (in alphabetical order):
- A Promise To Lena
- A Stranger’s Guide
- Ain’t You Been Baptized
- All The Trees In The Wood
- All The While, The Birds
- Assemblage
- Behind Me Lies The Desert
- Belmore
- Burn The Feather
- Captain Grande
- Count Less
- Die Standing Like Trees
- Don’t Think A Single Though
- Down The Road There’s Sunshine
- Foreigners In A Familiar Land
- Freeze Frame
- From Gabriel to Gabrielle
- Gabriel
- Glide
- Gllu Boy And The One Saving Grace
- Hollow Spaces
- How To Construct A Ghost
- Jesse’s Shrine
- Kinesia Paradoxa
- Kololo Hill
- Listen If You Can
- Loeffler
- Looking For Me
- Lucas
- Median Gray
- Newton’s Laws of Motion
- Ordinary Sacred
- Paradise Undone: A Novel of Jonestown
- Pettiver’s Cabinet Of Curiosities
- Remorse
- Rough New Prizes
- She Walks In
- Skywhale
- Sourland Stew
- Standing Water
- Tales From A Tall Woman
- The ATM Machine
- The Colour Of Echoes
- The Confession Of Miss Kate Marsden
- The Dedication
- The Glitter Of Bones
- The Flames: Egon Schiele’s Women
- The Immortalist
- The Incitement Of Archie Rummage
- The Killing Ground
- The Moneyspinner
- The Price Of Truth
- The Time Artist
- The Return
- The Sisterhood Of The Good Death
- The Sound Of It
- The Summer And The May
- The Thin End Of The Wedge
- The Web We Weave
- The Widow
- There Had Better Be Endone In That Christmas Bon Bon
- Victims Of Geography
- Where Are We Tomorrow?
Amanda, Louise and Sophie will now re-read all of these stories to do the very hard job of whittling them down to a shortlist of 10. This will be announced in mid-May time.
If you weren’t quite ready to submit to the 2018 competition as soon as the winner has been chosen by this year’s judge, literary agent Diana Beaumont, then the the 2019 competition will open for entries.
If you’d like ongoing inspiration and advice to develop your writing our Author Memberships provide just that, as well as free competition entries, discounted courses, free books, and more. Get the info here.