An overview of novel competitions across the UK with closing dates for submissions. Good luck

• Competition	What they say	Closing Date	Website Link
  Bridport Prize	Each year our excellent judges hand out over £18,000 in prize money for your best submissions in poetry, short stories, flash fiction and first novels.	31st May 2019	Bridport Prize
  The Peggy Chapman-Andrews Award for a First Novel	The award is run in conjunction with industry partners The Literary Consultancy,  – the UK’s first and leading editorial and manuscript assessment service, A. M. Heath Literary Agents and Tinder Press.  Submissions are welcome in any adult fiction genre including fiction for young adults (YA) providing there is a genuine crossover for adult readership. Non-fiction and fiction for children is not eligible.	31st May 2019	Bridport Prize
  Bath Novel Award	The Bath Novel Award is a prize for unpublished and independently published novelists. The winner of The Bath Novel Award 2019 will receive £2,500 Novels can be in any genre written for adult or young adult (13+) readersCaroline Ambrose from the Bath Novel Award is a guest speaker at Novel Nights in Bath on 6th Sept 2019	2nd June 2019	Bath Novel Award
  Bath Children’s Novel Award	The Bath Children’s Novel Award opens for entries 17th June 2019	17th November 2019	Bath Novel Award
  Katie Fordd Award for Mainstream Fiction	Open to Gloucestershire writers only £5 entry	22 September 2019	Stroud Book Festival
  The Mo Siewcharran Prize	A prize for unpublished fiction writers from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds 1st Prize: £2,500 with opportunity of publishing deal with Dialogue Books. 2nd Prize: £1,500  & book hamper. 3rd Prize: £750 & book hamper Free entry.	29th July 2019
  Lost the Plot Work in Progress Prize	Free entry. Send in first three chapters 1st: Prize A consultation with an agent from PFD, feedback on your m/s, writers survival kit Other prizes: Feedback on your m/s and a writers’ survival kit	31st July 2019	Terms and Conditions
  Curtis Brown First Novel Award	Free entry. Prizes £3,000 and representation by Curtis Brown. A three month novel writing course with Curtis Brown, mentoring with the team.	1st August 2019

• The Nan Shepherd Prize for Nature Writing 2019
• Closes 10th Spetember 2019
• Applications are open to previously unpublished writers based in the UK and Ireland, who consider themselves underrepresented in nature writing, whether through ethnicity, disability, class, sex, gender, sexuality or any other circumstances.
• Entries of Narrative Non-Fiction that deals with nature
• Free to enter
•  Gransnet & HQ Writing Competition      For women writers over the age of 40 resident in UK & Ireland featuring a character over 40
•  Closes 3oth September 2019 
•  Free entry
• 1st prize: Publishing contract with HQ. Five short-listed writers receive editorial feedback
• Excludes sci-fi, fantasy, erotica or YA

• Grindstone Literary 2019 International Novel Prize
• Closes 28th September
• Judge Lucy Morris, Curtis Brown Books
• Entry £22
• Every entrant gets feedback
• 3000 words + synopsis
• Prize: £1,000 + publication

Mslexia Fiction Competition Adult Novel 

•  Closes 30 September 2019
• Entry £25 per entry.
• Open to women writers for an unpublished novel.
• Prize £5,000 and the option of representation by agent Charlotte Robertson, the winner and four finalists will receive manuscript feedback, and introductions to agents and editors at a special event held in London
• The first 5,000 words of completed, unpublished novels for adult readers, of at least 50,000 words in length (not including the title).

 The Caledonia Novel Award 2020

• Closes 1st November 2019
• Entry £25 per novel (sponsored places)
• Any genre for adults or young adults. At least 50,000
• Send in the first 20 pages of your novel
• Prize: £1,500. The best novel from the British Isles & Ireland recevies  a free place on a writing course with Moniack Mhor Creative Writing Centre.
• Judge:  Jenny Hewson, literary agent at Rogers, Coleridge & White Literary Agency

• Inevitably, this list will be incomplete. If there are other competitions for novelists you think should be on the list, please let me know and email grace@novelnights.co.uk
• Colette Hill is a reader for the Bridport Prize and co-hosts Novel Nights Bath. Read her blog here on what she looks for in a manuscript.