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Hello!

 

Please forgive the extra newsletter.  We just wanted to send a quick email around to our regular readers to say that the 2017/18 GBP Short Story Prize is now open to submissions. We launched at the weekend and it’s already going great guns. 

 

 

 

 

It's the third year of the prize (you can read about the previous two years here and here; our talented winners were Riona Judge McCormack  and Yelena Moskovich).  

 

We love our award - it's been a great way for us to get to find out about new talent, as well as a good way to fund the talent we’re already publishing. We hope also it’s been very positive for the writers involved. We’ve helped a few get agents and publishing deals - and all of them have got to share some superb work. Just this weekend we had a public event at the Greenwich Book Festival, where our longlisted authors from last year’s prize read extracts from their stories and talked about their craft. It was an honour and a joy to hear from them. 

 

Anyway, as some of you will know, there is a fee for the prize - this is £10 per entry, which offsets the administration fees for the award and also offers essential funds for supporting the work of Galley Beggar Press. But we realise that not everyone can afford this - so last year we offered 25 free places for low-earners. These went very quickly - and although this year we've increased the free places to 50, these are also getting snapped up at a very speedy rate. 

 

Why are we telling you this? Partly because we want any of you who could use one of these places to have the opportunity, before they disappear. So please do drop a line to elly@galleybeggar.co.uk if you feel you can’t afford the fee, but would still like to enter.  

 

That’s the giveaway - but here comes the plea. We'd also really like to increase the number of free entries - as there is clearly a need for these spaces. Elly and me have just been scratching our heads and thinking about how to do this. We simply can't afford much more ourselves - but what we did think might work is this: if anyone felt that they wanted to donate a free entry. we would meet that. In other words - every time the fee for one place is donated over the next two months, we’ll make two available. If you think this is a good idea and are able to help out, head for our donate button, which is here (Scroll down the page). Also, to make doubly sure, drop us a quick line at info@galleybeggar.co.uk, letting us know what you’ve done. (That way we can thank you too!) 

 

Finally - of course, we’re eager for as many regular entries as possible too, so please do jump in. 

 

Fondly,

 

Elly and Sam

 

PS Sam’s politics book Enemies Of The People is out this week too. He built a website. If you want to buy a copy, Sam will sign it, and be oh so grateful. Hopefully you'll feel like you’re striking a blow for the truth too. Which matters now more than ever... Spread the word!