May: What Makes a Winner?
In the run-up to Issue One of The Bournemouth Journal's literature review, we reveal the writers being featured, we open for submissions, and we ask: what makes a winning entry?
High energy is flowing behind the scenes at The Bournemouth Journal as we run up to the publication of our first contemporary literature review next month. If you’re not yet familiar with The Bournemouth Journal – where have you been?! – the inaugural issue of this exciting new publication is published on Sun 1 June 2025.
Choosing the writers whose works will grace the pages of The Bournemouth Journal Issue One has been one of the important jobs keeping our editors up into the wee-small hours. They’ve been carefully selecting the most outstanding prose and poetry from among the longlisted entries of the 2025 Bournemouth Writing Prize.
At last now, the wait is over, and we can reveal the names. If you’ve been on tenterhooks wondering whether you’d be one of the chosen few, we can now put you out of your misery!
Here’s the list! Our warmest congratulations to all of you.
We want YOUR work!
Not only is all that exciting stuff happening backstage, but to raise the stakes even higher, we can announce that the submissions window for The Bournemouth Journal’s 2026 review is now officially open!
If you have projects and poetry almost ready for their public debut, please check out our submissions guidelines. There’s also lots of info on the kinds of writing we’re looking for here. We publish fiction, flash fiction, poetry and projects that push boundaries. If this sounds like you, this could be your big break. We want your work!
Issue One: Editor’s Interview
You might also be interested to read an interview by our Editor in Chief, Brad Gyori, with the award-winning writer, Yvonne Battle-Felton, about her latest novel ‘Curdle Creek’. Check it out on Sun 1 June in Issue One of The Bournemouth Journal.
Hints & Tips: What makes a winner?
To give you the best chances of success in getting your writing published in The Bournemouth Journal, or simply for some great advice on submitting your creations to competitions and getting them noticed, we’ve been probing people ‘in the know’ for their best tips and secrets.
We’ve been asking questions like: What’s your writing background? What makes a winning submission? What do judges look out for? What strategies have you used yourself? And some of their answers may surprise you.
Fiction
Susan L. Edser has experience of entering contests herself. She came second in the 2024 Oxford Flash Fiction Prize with her entry ‘Jigsaw Pieces’. She’s also just been longlisted in the Fish Flash Fiction Prize 2025.
A queer writer, facilitator and community builder, she’s our first Short Story Editor at The Bournemouth Journal, so has been involved in setting-up the role. She explains the review’s two primary issues, coming out in June and September 2025, have been led by students as part of the MA in Creative Writing and Publishing at Bournemouth University; they’re the first to read the entries.
In terms of what the student team look for when they choose short stories for the journal, Susan says: “We are a diverse group and are looking for writing that pushes boundaries and inspires us. As the journal strapline states, we contain multitudes: we want stories and poems that celebrate difference through their subjects and style.
“On a personal note,” she says, “I want to be emotionally moved. I want to forget time. I want to be transported.”
Susan has been writing fiction and memoir all her life but says she hadn’t really pushed herself forward until recently: “I’ve only started to pursue it seriously over the last few years. Like many, I was troubled by imposter syndrome and perfectionism that stopped me from writing.”
So, what are her thoughts when she’s entering a short story of her own into a competition? “I always check the deadline and brief to ensure I can produce something original. I like to have time to let an idea cook, and I hone it many times before the final submission.”
In terms of her best tips for anyone wanting to submit their work to The Bournemouth Journal, she says: “Make us wish we had written it. Be unique, surprise us, but make sure you follow the guidelines.”
Hannah Bunting has just won the Short Story category of the Bournemouth Writing Prize with ‘Icarus Rises’. Here is an excerpt, published with Hannah’s permission:
Icarus Rises
The sun is calling and I answer, ascending even as the smell of melting wax reaches my nose. The sun slips the feathers loose from my wings one by one, until I am left naked and unprotected.
I fall.
The sea, when it comes, is cold and endless. My skin snaps against the surface, breaking bone and tearing skin.
Judge, Laura Williams commented of ‘Icarus Rises’: “One might think there can’t possibly be more to be said about the well-trodden myth of Daedalus and Icarus, but in this spinning tale of entrapment, isolation, madness and betrayal, I found myself looking at this story, and the possibilities it contains, in an entirely new way.
“The atmosphere is unsettling, almost gothic, full of birds, wax, bones and ink, and the writing lifts these characters off the page into the heat of the sun. The best short stories are perfectly constructed for the short form, leaving nothing more to be asked of the author, although the questions they pose stay running around the reader’s head.”
Hannah says she’s been writing fiction for as long as she can remember. “It took two finished books, many more unfinished ones, and a handful of short stories to get to this point! Icarus Rises is really the first short story I’ve written that felt like it was meant to be. Self-contained, the perfect length for the story I wanted to tell, and not a novel masquerading as a short story (I’ve written plenty of those, too).”
So, what advice does she have for other writers on how to be successful in submitting to journals, reviews, and contests?
“I think it probably comes down to this: care a lot, and don’t care at all. By care a lot, I mean: write the thing you’re excited to write, instead of the thing you think competitions or journals want to see. It’s the only way to a) really show what you can do and b) do it without making yourself miserable.
And when I say don’t care at all? I mean that, once you have something you’re proud of and excited to show the world, just get it out there. Learn how to get rejected and keep going, without spiralling about whether or not rejection makes you a bad writer.”
Does she think there’s a secret to writing fiction for competitions?
“At the end of the day, all you can really do is write what you want to write. Different judges will have different tastes and be looking for different things, so it’s impossible to please everyone. Start by writing the best version of the story you want to write. And, one day, your work will find someone who loves what you write just as much as you do!”
Does she have tips for any things to avoid when submitting?
“Read the guidelines and figure out if this is the right place for your work before you submit. Most journals and prizes have guidelines for genre, tone, or subject matter. If that doesn’t fit what you’ve written, move on and find something that works for you – don’t give into the temptation to try and shoehorn a theme or a tone into what you’ve already written! It’ll make your work weaker, and the judges will probably spot what you’ve done a mile off.
“I really thought Icarus Rises would struggle to find a place anywhere – it has fantasy elements, but it’s not fantasy; it’s sort of a time travel story, but I wouldn’t call it sci fi; it’s based in mythology, but it’s not really true to Greek myth. But I loved writing it. I just had to give it some time until it found where it was meant to be.
Hannah adds: “If you’re out there wondering about entering next year’s Bournemouth Writing Prize, then do it! Seeing my work in print has been wonderful, the whole team supporting the prize have been excellent, and winning has already opened up so many opportunities for me. Don’t hesitate.”
Poetry
Dorset poet, David Herring, has been published widely in literary journals and was a prize winner at the 2023 Bournemouth Writing Festival. As Lead Director of indie publishing company, Dithering Chaps, he and his wife Gina both judged the Bournemouth Writing Prize Poetry section and published the contest’s anthology.
David says until five years ago, he’d had no luck in getting his work accepted for publication, but a turning point came when he joined a local poetry writers’ group called Stanza, in Wimborne, Dorset.
“This group offers friendly but incisive comments on each poem you bring and helps you hone your work. Members share tips about where to submit particular poems. So, initially, I submitted to places where others had had success. They also suggested using online listings of submission opportunities, such as Angela T Carr’s blog.”
“And this links to another essential attribute for publishing success: perseverance! I try to allocate an hour or so each week to send some of my stuff off. I have a spreadsheet recording each submission. This currently has over five hundred rows, the vast majority of which I have colour-coded 'Red for Rejection'. I believe the pain of these rejections is made up for by the small, but growing, number of 'Greens for Got In!'. My ratio is around one acceptance for every thirty submissions.”
In summary, David says: “Seek and listen to others' feedback; and don't be too downhearted by rejections. Another reader, another day, might love a poem that's been turned down multiple times.”
Paul Nield is the winner of the 2025 Bournemouth Writing Prize Poetry category with his poem ‘First Love’. Having only recently retired to Bournemouth, Paul learnt about the contest after attending ‘An Introduction to Creative Writing’ evening class at the Arts University. He says he “felt encouraged enough to take a chance on sending something to the competition, just to see what happened.”
Here's an excerpt, published with Paul’s permission:
First Love
Her hair was scrambled egg without the toast
and her eyes were wet slate
and her blink was a Venus fly trap
and her lips were a duck’s beak
and she kissed like a hoover.
The judges, Dithering Chaps, commented: “We fell in love with this poem because it reminded us of one of our favourite Shakespearean sonnets; ‘My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun,’ which is another poem that describes a lover in unconventionally unflattering terms. ‘First Love’ even starts with a line of full-on iambic pentameter, but perhaps conscious that no-one can out-bard the Bard, it finds its own, contemporary way of telling us its love.”
Paul describes himself as ‘perhaps atypical’ because he has no background in writing poetry, hasn’t entered any writing competition before, and hasn’t made any other submissions.
As a result, he says he feels very diffident about offering tips. “My poem was not written with the competition in mind,” he says, “so perhaps the starting point is to write for yourself and express something true to you that may speak to the reader or listener. Without that, I'm not sure (though it may be different for others) that trying to write to a 'competition formula' would work.”
So, what does Paul think makes a competition winner?
“Surely the answer to that, ultimately, is the taste of the judges! Looking at the quality of the short-listed poems here, now published in this year's anthology, I see work which would to me be prize-winning. So perhaps the other answer to that question is perseverance - the search for recognition must be ongoing.”
“And yes, I'd add that this prize has let me feel confident enough to try and write more poetry. Which means that I have a waste-paper basket overflowing with scrunched-up paper...ain't writing fun?”
The 2025 Bournemouth Writing Prize Winners’ Anthology of Poetry and Short Stories can be purchased here.
On a personal note, as editor of this newsletter, I feel all of these stories above have inspired me to try submitting more often. Like me, perhaps many of us, doubt ourselves when we should really say, “I can do this!” So, if you have a piece of creativity you’ve been wondering about, perhaps now is the time to pull it out, dust it off and submit it to The Bournemouth Journal - or elsewhere. You just never know what might happen!
2026 Bournemouth Writing Prize - open for submissions
If you are now feeling a few tingles of inspiration, a quick reminder that the 2026 Bournemouth Writing Prize is also open for submissions until 15 August 2025.
The competition, run by staff and students from BU’s MA in Creative Writing and Publishing, is judged by professionals from the publishing world – think editors, agents and award-winning writers.
The prizes alone are well worth entering for, not to mention the kudos. This year, to celebrate its 10th anniversary, we’re tripling the prize money on offer, as well as adding four new chances to win and three different publishing opportunities.
It’s worth noting that the first-place winners will be published in Dorset magazine as well as in our own anthology.
The Outsiders Project Anthology
For yet more encouragement, the names of the writers to be included in the Outsiders Project Anthology will be announced here on Sun 1 June. The book will be published on Fri 1 Aug. Watch this space!
The Outsiders Project is a local creative writing collective that focuses on uplifting the underrepresented voices of people who are sidelined from society. The anthology is also produced by Bournemouth University’s MA in Creative Writing and Publishing.
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Happy writing, reading and submitting!
Julie Salt
Newsletter Editor