The University of Aberdeen’s Special Collections Centre is asking budding writers to be inspired by its collections and enter the 2013 Flash Fiction writing competition.
The Special Collections Centre is running the competition as part of Book Week Scotland 2013. Entries are accepted from anyone over the age of eight, with two separate age categories for entries available. The children’s competition is open to youngsters between the age of eight and 13, and the other category is for anyone aged 14 and over.
To enter the competition, writers are asked to be inspired by one of four images from the Special Collections Centre archives and rare books and write a 500 word short story.
The competition will be judged by award-winning authors Wayne Price and Caroline Clough who will award £50 of Waterstones book vouchers to the winner of the over 14s category, and a £10 Waterstones voucher plus a goodie bag for the winner in the children’s category.
Everyone who enters the competition will see their work published on the University website.
The deadline for entries is midnight on October, 27 and the winners will be announced during Book Week Scotland.
Siobhán Convery, Head of Special Collections at the University of Aberdeen, said: “We ran the competition for the first time last year and it was such a success that we have decided to make the 2013 event bigger and better by introducing the children’s competition. We have so many inspiring images within our collection that we thought it would be interesting to see how people interpret the pictures in creating their short stories.
“The standard of entries in 2012 was extremely high and I am sure that this year will prove equally as difficult for our judges to pick their winners.”
For more information on how to enter the competition, to view the selected images, and for the Flash Fiction 2013 rules, please visit http://www.abdn.ac.uk/library/about/special/book-week-scotland