Submit To Mslexia Women's Poetry Competition 2023

This competition is open to unpublished poems of any length, on any subject. Your £10 entry fee allows you to submit up to three poems.

Mslexia Women's Poetry Competition 2023

This competition is open to unpublished poems of any length, on any subject. Your £10 entry fee allows you to submit up to three poems.

Prizes

1st: £2,000; 2nd: £500; 3rd: £250

Unpublished Poetry Prize for the best poem by a previously unpublished poet: £250.

The four winners, plus sixteen additional finalists will have their poems published in the March 2024 issue of Mslexia.

Deadline

The deadline for all entries is 23.59GMT, 4 December 2023.

Results

Entrants will be notified of the outcome of their entry in February 2024.

The winner and finalists will be announced on 1 March 2024. 

Eligibility

You do not have to subscribe to Mslexia to be eligible, but you do have to self-identify as a woman. We will accept entries from women of any age of any nationality from any country. This includes under-18s.

No entrant may win more than one prize in any one competition. If the judge/s include more than one anonymised entry by the same writer in the winners’ list, the lower-placed entry will be eliminated to allow the maximum number of writers to win prizes.

Entries that have won a prize in any other competition are not eligible.

Entries should not be a translation of another author’s work.

Eligibility: Simultaneous Submissions

We do accept simultaneous submissions, however we ask that you notify us as soon as possible if your work has won, or is to be published, elsewhere. 

Likewise, if you have been selected to appear in Mslexia, you will need to withdraw your work from the other publication. 

Any entries withdrawn due to success in other competitions will not be refunded. 

Entry Instructions

Formatting and style

Entries should be in English or English dialect. Strong language is permitted; there is no need to censor your writing for Mslexia! 

Short Story and Flash Fiction entries should be typed, double-spaced, on A4 pages. For legibility’s sake, please use a 12-point-size font. (Please note: you will not be disqualified if you don't adhere strictly to this.)

Novel entries should be typed, double-spaced, on A4 pages. When submitting, submit the first 5,000 words only in the first instance, with the title of your novel appearing on the first page. Please note - if the 5,000-word limit cuts off your work mid-sentance, you may round up to the nearest natural stopping point 100-200 words over the limit.

Poetry entries should be typed on A4 pages; however the spacing is at the poets discretion, we just ask that the poem be legible.

Pamphlet entries should be typed on A4 pages, with no more than 40 lines of poetry on each page. When submitting your pamphlet online please submit ONE document which should contain a title page, contents page and your individual poems - please do not submit your pamphlet as multiple documents.

If you are entering online there is no need to number the pages, but it is helpful to number the pages of postal entries.  

Please include the title of the work on your entry. It should appear at the top of the first page and/or in the document header - note the title of your work is not included in the word count.

Your entry will be judged anonymously, so do not put your name or contact details anywhere on the text pages of your entry. (This information should be restricted to your online Entry Form or to a cover sheet for postal entries.)

If you can include a word count, please do; however, if you don't, or forget to, please don't worry! You won't be disqualified if you don't include it and we will be in touch with you if there's a problem.

The file types we accept are: .doc, .docx, .rtf, .pdf, .txt, .pages, .odt.

Please do not send your entry as an image file, .jpg, .png etc., they are not accepted.

How to Enter

Add the entry fee to your basket and proceed through the checkout (you will be asked to set up, or sign in to you Mslexia account during the process). Once the order is completed you'll be taken to a 'Submit' page where the entry form is located. You can submit at a later date by logging into your Mslexia online account and going to the 'competitions' tab.

Where do I start?

Check you have followed the instructions for formatting above, then select 'add to basket' and proceed through to the checkout to pay your entry fee/s.

You will be asked to sign up/sign in to your Mslexia account.

Upon completing your payment, you will be immediately redirected to a 'Submit' page. Once there, click on the button ‘Enter Now’, which will open the online Entry Form, where you can input your contact details and upload your text/s.

We will send you a payment confirmation email as soon as we receive your payment. (Check your Junk folder if you can’t see it in your inbox.)

Must I submit my entry as soon as I have paid? 

Once you have paid you may submit your entry either immediately or later – at any time, right up until the competition deadline. To enter at a later date, just login to your Mslexia online account and locate the 'competitions' tab when you're ready to submit.

That didn’t seem to work – what should I do?

If the Entry Form doesn’t appear, or the upload doesn’t work, please email your entry text along with a cover sheet with your details (see Cover Sheets below), as separate attachments, to competitions@mslexia.co.uk. Explain in the email that you have paid online and we will process the entry for you. DO NOT pay again to restart the entry process. (We will refund you if you do, of course, but it is a bit of an admin headache!)

Entering by Post

If entering by post, mark your envelope ‘Mslexia + the title of the competition’ and send it to: Mslexia Publications Ltd, PO Box 656, Newcastle upon Tyne NE99 1PZ.

If entering by post, you can pay by cheque (payable to Mslexia Publications Ltd.) or by debit/credit card (phone +44 (0)191 204 8860 with your details). We won’t process your entry until we have received your payment.

If you require confirmation of receipt of a postal entry, enclose an SAE labelled 'Acknowledgement' 

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