Autumn Writing Prize 2021

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Visual Verse Autumn Writing Prize

OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS

Image by Nickhil Jain

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Dear writers,

The Visual Verse Autumn Writing Prize is now open for submissions.

This is your writing prompt courtesy of photographer and developer, Nick Jain. Your task is to write 50-500 words and submit here (https://visualverse.org/submit/) by 10am Uk time (GMT) today, 30th September.

Please ensure you start the submission process at least 10 minutes early as the site will close promptly at 10am. We cannot accept submissions by email. Please also read the submission guidelines (https://visualverse.org/submission-guidelines/) to ensure your piece complies. The word count is strict.

Please proofread your work before submitting.

If you are a disabled writer and need additional support to submit your work, please let us know. Email visualverse@thecurvedhouse.com asap to let us know how we can support you.

You can write in any style or form and we encourage you to be brave and innovative.

We will announce the winners at 9am GMT tomorrow. All winners will receive a £50 prize and a one-to-one mentoring session with our publisher, Kristen Harrison.

The prize is judged by Dr Preti Taneja, publisher Kristen Harrison and deputy editor Isabel Brookes, with assistance from Tam Eastley, Nahda Tahsin and Jordan Fleming.

Good luck!
Start Timer (https://vclock.com/timer/#countdown=01:00:00&enabled=0&seconds=3600&title=Visual+Verse%3A+One+image.+One+Hour.+50-500+Words.+)
Submit (https://visualverse.org/submit/)

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Volume 08, Chapter 07 | May 2021

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Image by Unknown Artist / Wellcome Trust

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Dear writers,

This month we have a special collaboration with the much-respected imprint, Serpent’s Tail (https://serpentstail.com/) , to celebrate the debut novel (https://uk.bookshop.org/books/before-the-ruins/9781788163798?aid=7452) of Victoria Gosling.

Let me tell you a little anecdote about Victoria Gosling (https://twitter.com/VictoriaReaderB?s=20) . Several years ago, I found myself an hour from Berlin, in a strange little Fort (replete with a moat) with cavernous rooms and an honesty bar. This was The Reader Berlin (https://www.thereaderberlin.com/) ’s Fort Gorgast Writer’s Festival and I was there to represent Visual Verse. I sat in on a workshop that Victoria ran, in which she took participants through a number of writing activities that were very much in the spirit of the surrealists, and in the spirit of Visual Verse. These were activities designed to tap the subconscious and remove mental barriers to one’s own creativity. I expected to be more of an observer than a participant but as Victoria unfurled her intriguing, thoughtful array of writing exercises I found myself deeply engaged. I have kept the work I did that day. And I have never forgotten the feeling of liberation as her prompts evoked words I never knew I had in me.
Victoria has a special kind of magic: she’s a gifted writer and also someone who can share that gift, conjuring other people’s talents with great empathy and sensitivity.

So without further ado, I present your May visual writing prompt, an intriguing artwork thought to be from around 1850, by an unknown artist, and courtesy of Wellcome Collection. It is an honour and pleasure to present Victoria’s response on page one. Her first full-length novel, Before the Ruins (https://uk.bookshop.org/books/before-the-ruins/9781788163798?aid=7452) , will be published on May 6th by Serpent’s Tail. It is a fabulous book, full of mystery, speculation, characters that oscillate between dark and light, a complex but accessible narrative, and a protagonist who keeps us at arms length while anchoring us to her plight. Put it on your summer reading list immediately.

On page two, we are thrilled to feature another new Serpent’s Tail writer, Alice Ash (https://twitter.com/aliceash_?s=20) , whose short story collection Paradise Block (https://uk.bookshop.org/books/paradise-block/9781788165549) was released in February. Alice is the current Writer in Residence at Open Book (https://openbookreading.com/) , a literary organisation working across Scotland; you can read Alice’s stories here (https://openbookreading.com/unbound/#lockdown) . She lives in Brighton with her boyfriend and 2,000 books.

And as you know we often invite regular contributors whose work has caught our eye month-to-month. On page three we are delighted to introduce you to Rachel Belward (https://twitter.com/RBel2?s=20) . Rachel grew up in northern Italy, and she now lives in London. She is a regular contributor to Visual Verse, and her short stories have been published by Dear Damsels. She works for a mental health charity, and is working on a novel about love, music and climate disaster. She loves to read, and her Instagram book reviews are my go-to for reading recommendations. Follow her on Instagram at @rach_is_reading (https://www.instagram.com/rach_is_reading/) .

Now it’s your turn, dear writers. The image is the starting point, the text is up to you.

Enjoy!

Kristen
with the VV team, Preti, Lucie, Isabel and Luke.

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Volume 05, Chapter 10 | August 2018

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Image by Jon Tyson

Dear writers, readers and friends,

The August edition is alive, one day late this month due to travel commitments. We hope the extra day has simply given you time to build your enthusiasm.

For some reason all three of our lead writers have names beginning with ‘S’ this month. Maybe it’s because we’re based in the northern hemisphere and the summer is going to our heads. Or maybe it’s a nod to a strange and sublime image, meant to literally swirl your creativity into ever more intricate formations and bamboozle the words out of you. This captivating visual is courtesy of Jon Tyson whose fabulously gritty photographic work you will find here (https://unsplash.com/@jontyson) .

Our lead writer is Sam Guglani (https://twitter.com/@samirguglani) , a writer and Consultant Oncologist in Cheltenham who specialises in the management of lung and brain tumours. He has Masters degrees in Ethics (Keele, 2009) and Creative Writing (Oxford, 2014). He writes poetry, a column for The Lancet titled The Notes, and his novel Histories is published by riverrun (Quercus Books, 2017). He is Director of Medicine Unboxed, a project that engages health professionals and the public in conversation around medicine, illuminated by the arts, and his piece is intergalactically good.

Next up we have Samuel Fisher (https://twitter.com/@fishersamuk) , author of one of our debut novels of the year, The Chameleon. He also wears many hats – running Burley Fisher books in East London, where many, many writers find a warm welcome, support for their events and an excellent selection of books. And, he is also a publisher – of the recently minted Peninsula Press, bringing you thought-provoking essays in beautiful book form – a true example of the issues and objects of our times. His piece, to hint at its inspiration, is a thing of beauty.

Finally we are very excited to bring you a piece by Sarvat Hasin (https://twitter.com/@sarvathasin) . She was born in London and grew up in Karachi. She is the author of the novel This Wide Night (Penguin India, 2017) which was longlisted for the DSC prize for South Asian literature and the short story collection You Can’t Go Home Again (Penguin India, 2018). She is the fiction editor of the Stockholm Review.

So, dear writers, standards are high. Multitasking is the new job for life and we are here to remind you to write for love not glory – although we want that for you too.

And we are now looking forward to reading you! (Don’t forget the RULES: 50-500 words, written in response to the image in the space of an hour. Get it to us by 15 August, and we will publish the best 100 pieces.) The image is the starting point, the text is up to you.

Preti, Lucie and Kristen

Volume 05, Chapter 07 | May 2018

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Image by Mary Cassatt

Welcome dear writers to the 1st of May,

Our image this month might be classic, but our writers are raw brilliance. That’s how we like it here at VV.

Painted by American artist Mary Cassatt in 1893, The Child’s Bath depicts an ordinary moment in domestic life. But its quietness is misleading. Through her work, Cassatt gave voice and presence to women, offering a female perspective that had long been dismissed as inferior. Described as the embodiment of the ‘New Woman’, Cassatt played a crucial role in advocating for equality, particularly in relation to education.

We’re always on the look out for the best, most radical and boundary breaking work. So we’re very proud to publish work by Inara Verzemnieks, the author of the astonishing and moving Among the Living and the Dead, published this month by Pushkin Press (https://www.pushkinpress.com/discover-the-breathtaking-among-the-living-and-the-dead) . Inara teaches creative non-fiction at the University of Iowa, and writes regularly for the New York Times and the Atlantic, among other publications. She has won a Pushcart Prize and a Rona Jaffe Writer’s Award, and has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in feature writing. She lives in Iowa City, Iowa. Her piece got us in the guts, then twisted them.

Next we bring you essayist and poet Will Harris (https://willjharris.com/) . He is the author of a chapbook, All this is implied, and a groundbreaking essay, Mixed-Race Superman which will be published this month by the very new and exciting Peninsula Press.

Following this, we have a piece by Scherezade Siobhan. An award-winning writer and psychologist, she’s a community catalyst who founded and runs The Talking Compass (http://www.thetalkingcompass.com) —  a therapeutic space dedicated to providing counseling services and decolonizing mental health care. She is the author of Bone Tongue (Thought Catalog Books, 2015), Father, Husband (Salopress, 2016) and The Bluest Kali (Lithic Press, 2018). She says she can be found squeeing about militant bunnies @zaharaesque on twitter/FB/IG as well as www.zaharaesque.com (http://www.zaharaesque.com/) . She invites you to send her chocolate and puppies  via  nihilistwaffles@gmail.com (mailto:nihilistwaffles@gmail.com) .

To crown it all, a new piece by Rakhshan Rizwan. Rakhshan was born in Lahore, Pakistan and moved to Germany where she studied Literature and New Media. She is currently a PhD candidate at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. Her poems have appeared in Blue Lyra Review, The Missing Slate, Postcolonial Text and elsewhere. She is the winner of the Judith Khan Memorial Poetry Prize (2015). Her debut poetry collection, Paisley, has been shortlisted in the “Best Poetry Pamphlet” category at the 2018 Sabateur Awards.

So – happy reading, writing and submitting. May is the month to settle in to the new season and we can’t wait to read your words. The image is the starting point, the rest is up to you!

Love,
Kristen, Preti, Lucie and Rose

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Volume 04, Chapter 08 | June 2017

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Image courtesy of the Bodleian Libraries

Dear writers, readers and friends,

This month we seen US Comedian Kathy Griffin fired from jobs and berated across the news and social media for an image of her with a beheaded Donald Trump. It was meant to be funny and perhaps if it were less bloody she could have got away with it. But it was particularly gruesome. Kathy’s saga is an example of how no two people ever perceive a single image in the same way. Kathy’s frame of perception, her life experiences, mean she sees it as funny. For others it is a symbol of hate, inciting a murder. For those who dislike blood and guts it’s just a bit gross. While our life experiences inform how we see, we writers can step away from our life experience and see through the eyes of characters and narraters to bring alternate views, perhaps even broadening our own minds in the process. So, who is seeing who in this month’s image? This intriguing Mermaid from the collection of the Bodleian Libraries (http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/) , Oxford University, is something you can
inspect from behind glass or, perhaps, turn the gaze back upon yourself, or us.

Our lead writer for June is a talent whose work we so admire, not just for his writing but also his instinct to bring art into every living moment, inviting participation and observation. Nigerian-born Inua Ellams (http://www.inuaellams.com/) is a cross art form practitioner, a poet, playwright & performer, graphic artist & designer and founder of the Midnight Run (http://www.themnr.com/) — an international, arts-filled, night-time, playful, urban, walking experience. He is a Complete Works poet alumni and a designer at White Space Creative Agency. Across his work, Identity, Displacement & Destiny are reoccurring themes in which he also tries to mix the old with the new: traditional African storytelling with contemporary poetry, pencil with pixel, texture with vector images. His poetry is published by Flipped Eye, Akashic, Nine Arches and several plays by Oberon.

Kathleen Heil (http://kathleenheil.net) graces us on page 2 with a beautifully controlled and moving piece. Kathleen is a writer, dancer, and translator. Her poems, stories, essays and translations most recently appear in The New Yorker, Five Points, FENCE, The Brooklyn Rail, Beloit Poetry Journal, Two Lines, SAND, and other journals. As a dancer, Heil has worked with various artists in the U.S. and Europe and performed her own choreography in New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Madrid, and elsewhere. A recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Sturgis Foundation, among others, she lives in Berlin. For those in Berlin, Kathleen has two workshops coming up – one on Rhythm and Phrasing (https://www.facebook.com/events/166433013891430/) and one on Style and Translation (https://www.facebook.com/events/247453242401643/) .

On page 3 we feature new writing from Erin O’Loughlin, a writer, translator and accidental wanderer. Originally from Australia, she has lived all over the world including Japan, South Africa and Italy. When she’s not busy living all her reincarnations at once (at least, that’s what it feels like some days) she is the associate editor for The Wild Word (http://thewildword.com/) magazine.

We have spent many afternoons reading The (http://thewildword.com/) Wild Word (http://thewildword.com/) where we found Deirdre Mulrooney (https://deirdre-mulrooney.squarespace.com/) , an emerging Irish artist living and working in Berlin. Raised working class in a small nation dominated by Catholicism and men, she now lives as a teacher, a mother and an artist discovering the joy of playing with taboos and visions of female identity that would, until all too recently, have seen her locked away. Her current work is a fantastical and brazenly irreverent take on femininity, sexuality, religion and power. See it in all its glory in her forthcoming exhibition, Bloody Milk River at Gallerie Baeren (https://deirdre-mulrooney.squarespace.com/new-cover-page/) in Neukölln, Berlin, from June 23rd.

Well? Who’s seeing who this month? The image is the starting point, the text is up to you.

Enjoy,
Kristen and Preti

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Volume 03, Chapter 05 | March 2016

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Image by Zata Banks
Guest Editor: Eley Williams

Dear writers, readers and friends,_x005F
After an exceptional month in February, with over 160 submissions published, we have pushed the Visual Verse format to new limits and present to you our first piece of concrete poetry (https://visualverse.org/submissions/anosmia/) , by Zata Banks. What a thing of beauty it is, sitting alongside this strange, furry image by Alejandro Carol.

Banks’ piece seems to mirror the contradiction within this image – that it is both starkly obvious and full of mystery all at once. What exactly is this creature? Why are we so close to it? Is it real or fake? Is it wild or tame? Help us to understand what we are seeing, dear writers. _x005F
And, as we have pushed our own limits, we challenge you to push yours too. We challenge you to write something outside of your comfort zone or choose a style you haven’t tried before. Our lead writers this month have set the bar high with innovative writing and we are thrilled to feature them.

Zata Banks (https://twitter.com/zoltarmaga) ‘ writing has been published in numerous anthologies, magazines and featured on BBC Radio 4, while her creative work has been used for courses at institutions including The Royal College of Art, the Poetry School, and the National Film and Television School. In addition, she is the founder of PoetryFilm (http://poetryfilm.org/) , a practice-based project that aims to celebrate experimental text/image/sound-screening, and explores semiotics and meaning-making within the art form.

Kate Potts (http://www.katepotts.net/) ‘ debut pamphlet Whichever Music (tall-lighthouse, 2008) was a Poetry Book Society Choice and was shortlisted for a Michael Marks Award. She received an Arts Council award towards her first collection Pure Hustle (Bloodaxe, 2011). Kate currently teaches for Oxford University and Royal Holloway, and is completing a PhD on the poetic radio play.

Annabel Banks (http://www.annabelbanks.com/) ’ work is published in numerous journals, magazines and anthologies including The Manchester Review, Litro, 3:AM and International Times, is forthcoming in Under the Radar, and is included in Eyewear’s Best New British and Irish Poets 2016. Recently she received three nominations for the 2016 Pushcart Prize (two for fiction and one for poetry), plus nominations for the Queen’s Ferry Press Best Short Fictions 2016, Blazvox’s 2016 Bettering American Poetry and the 2016 Derringer Awards. She is also on Twitter, @annabelwrites.

Nick Murray is a live literature producer, writer, musician and founder of Annexe Press, based in London. As a writer, Nick’s work has appeared in publications such as Lives Beyond Us (Sidekick Books), The Bohemyth and Belleville Park Pages. He is on Twitter, @terratrouve.

This is perhaps the most challenging image to date, in our opinion, so let’s see what you make of it.

Awaiting your words at www.visualverse.org/submit.

Preti, Kristen and Eley

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