"100" Competition Report 16-Jul-2016
"100" Competition Report – July 2016 by Pam Fish
Update
We are now into round four of our 100 comp, having received (as of July 12) 29 entries thus far. Overall, that means we've already received a pretty healthy 329 submissions since we first launched early last year. A number have come from abroad, so the "message" is definitely getting out there.
Judging
Tim Wilson is down for judging round four. Can I suggest Jane-Wenham Jones, Steve (Bowkett) and Simon Whalley as the judges for Rounds 5, 6 and 7? Would you like me to approach them? Any other ideas for judges?
Website
Just for the committee's information, as ever, Kevin's been doing a bang-up job on the website with the 100 Comp. You can read all of the winners and runners up stories on there, and trace every single entry so far.
Future Thoughts
Is there any mileage in a 100 Words Anthology when we reach say, 500 entries?
A 100 words lunchtime/early evening public reading session at NAWGFest? From entries already received? Or as a fresh little festival challenge for delegates? Or both?
Entries
As with anything new and novel, the entries came in thick and fast for the first two rounds. Less so, but still steady for round three. For our current round four, submissions have been coming in more slowly. My personal feeling is that it would be timely to give the competition a bit of a fresh impetus, marketing-wise.
The e-newsletter already publicizes competitions run by the likes of Mslexia, the Writer's Bureau et al – are all the major writers magazines and websites regularly doing likewise for us? I'm quite happy to send out a new press release about the 100 words comp to remind everyone of its existence, but in your judgment fellow chums, which are the writers mags and websites you would advise me to contact? In truth, I don't regularly get to see many of the writer's magazines, so would appreciate your guidance on this.
Is there something "new" we could use as a "hook" for the press release? Here's just one thought – perhaps for a future round, we ask that entrants try to use one of the first line prompts that we're putting up on the website in the resources section for their 100 Word submissions? We don't have to make it obligatory, but it would:
- help draw people to our website,
- help publicise the new writer's resource section,
- obviously, publicise the 100.
Any other thoughts/ideas?