Write About Trees

Write About Trees

We are delighted to announce our new competition for writers of both poetry and prose to tie in with the forthcoming Urban Tree Festival in May.

At last year’s Urban Tree Festival we had five published authors reading their nature writing, this year we wanted to host an event at which novice or unpublished writers might also have a similar opportunity of sharing their work.  So we have arranged for a special event to take place on the final day of the Urban Tree Festival at Bell House in Dulwich, London where there will not only be published authors but winners of the poetry and prose competition, sharing the stage and showcasing their work.

This year sees the anniversaries of three influential nature writers two of whom are amongst the most well-known poets in English literature:

It’s 200 years since John Clare’s first volume of poetry was published and 250 years since the birth of William Wordsworth. In addition, it is the 400th anniversary of John Evelyn 17th century polymath, diarist and the first person to write a book specifically about trees!

As all these anniversaries are being celebrated this year, we thought that they would make the perfect inspiration for contemporary writers to take on a challenge of writing a poem or short story of 250 words or under, winners of which will be published in “Canopy”, an illustrated anthology.

Working with illustrator Alban Low and his family publishing company Sampson Low with whom the Museum of Walking been publishing anthologies of very short stories, derived through running flash story competitions for the last 12 months, we are excited to reveal Alban’s artwork for the competition and “Canopy” anthology.

To ensure fairness we recruited two very qualified poets to act as judges of the poetry entries to the competition and we are delighted to welcome Peter Jaeger, who holds the post of Professor of Poetics at the University of Roehampton in London, where he also directs the Exploratory Writing Research Group and Ghazal Mosadeq the founder of Pamenar Press, an independent cross-cultural, multi-lingual publisher based in UK, Canada and Iran.

NG Bristow who is the lead tutor on Directing Fiction at Goldsmiths is joined by Andrew Stuck, founder of the Museum of Walking, and formerly in charge at rights at Hodder & Stoughton Publisher, to judge entries of the short stories.

Winners will receive three copies of the illustrated anthology as well as an invitation to read their work at the "Write About Trees Showcase" at the Urban Tree Festival.

Amongst the volumes of short story anthologies already published by the Museum of Walking and Sampson Low are stories that have been inspired by trees and urban woodland.  Winning authors of stories from  “Flash My Landmarks” and recently published “Autumn Colours” will also be reading their work at the Write About Trees Showcase.

We look forward to reading your submissions and listening to your poems and stories at the Urban Tree Festival at Bell House in May.

Can you Write About Trees? Just submit a poem or (very) short story of 250 words and under - details regarding submissions are here