Challenge accepted!
If you’re a regular on our website, then you probably love London just as much as we do. Well, here’s your chance to prove it! The London Society and Almacantar have teamed up to reward one lucky, London-loving person out there with up to £900. All you need to do is tell them why you love London, in up to 500 words.
The writing contest aims to celebrate our city’s strength and beauty, while keeping a positive outlook on the future. In line with the difficult year and a half we’ve all had, the theme is “recovery and resilience”, and participants need to express their love for London in a letter of up to 500 words.
The competition is open to all writing forms and styles: entrants can write on any aspect of London’s past, present or future, in the form of reportage, a historical essay, a ‘think piece’, a spot of futurology, a work of fiction, or a poem. The entries are allowed to have been published elsewhere, as long as they match the requirements and were written in 2021.
According to the website, there are five categories with prizes of £400, £200 and £100 in each, and a further overall winner’s prize of £500:
- Under 18
- Students (in full time education, 18+)
- Open – all other UK entrants
- International – from anyone not based in the UK
- Poetry
Judges include renowned names like Razia Iqbal of the BBC, Nicholas Spice of the London Review of Books, the author Dr Nick Browne / N M Browne, André Naffis-Sahely of Poetry London, and Dave Hill of OnLondon. Maybe next year they’ll have one of Secret London’s writers on the panel?
The closing date of the competition is 23:59 (UK time), November 30, 2021. Find the full rules and join the contest here.