Calling all writers and poets across Midlothian! Join us for MCAN’s very first Creative Writing Competition!
We are looking for stories that explore you thoughts, feelings and experiences around the climate crisis. They can be based on your own lived experience of weather changes or other effects of climate change, or on your concerns and hopes for the future.
You submissions can be fiction, non-fiction or poetry, so long as they address at least one of the prompts below:
- Do you have a story based on a real-life climate or weather event? Are you already feeling the effects of our changing climate? How has the weather and your community changed over the past 5, 10, 20 years due to climate change?
- How do you see your community in 10 years? By 2045? In 50 years? How have we adapted our cities, towns and villages? What does a fairer, more resilient and sustainable Midlothian could look like?
- What feelings does the climate crisis bring up? What makes you worried and anxious of the future? What makes you confident and hopeful of what we can achieve together?
Prizes
The winning submission will win a National Book Token voucher worth £100. Runner ups will receive a £50 voucher. The winning submission and runner ups all will be published on our website.
The winners will be decided by a selected panel, including a published author!
Guidelines
- Up to 2,000 words
- The setting of the story must be in a real location within Midlothian
- The story must address at least one of the prompts above
- You must live, have lived, and/or work in Midlothian
- You need to be the author of your submission
- Each author can make a maximum of 2 submissions
By submitting a story, you agree that Midlothian Climate Action and Midlothian Voluntary Action can use your story or excerpts of it in their website, social media, printed materials or other areas of work. You will always be credited as the author, unless you specify you’d rather remain anonymous.
How to apply?
Simply send a PDF, Word or Google document of your story to bruno.santos@midlothianclimateaction.org.uk. Please include in your email which area(s) of Midlothian your story is about.
Deadline for submissions is Sunday, 2nd February 2025.
Winners will be announced by the end of February.
