If you've long been gestating a great idea for stage, radio or screen, then the Birmingham Rep's Pen 2 Paper could provide you with the skills, support and guidance to put you on the road to a professional career. There's a catch, of course - to be eligible you need to  live in Aston, Sparkhill, Nechells, Ladywood, Longbridge, Northfield, Weoley or Bartley Green, be of black or minority ethnic origin, be unemployed, be disabled, be a refugee or asylum seeker or be in a low-paid job. Just one of those, mind. Though if all apply to you, then count your blessings.

Pen 2 Paper

This just in - a breathless missive from the Royal Society of Literature. They're "desperately seeking" short story entries for the V.S. Pritchett Memorial Prize; a P2P contest with a grand up for grabs for your previously unpublished entry of 2000-5000 words. £5 to enter, and entries should be in by 14th February.

Full details and an entry form available from the link below.

Royal Society of Literature

Bioware, creators of the superlative cult PC game Neverwinter Nights, are taking an unusual route to finding a creative writer for their upcoming games. It's a contest, requiring you to write an interactive drama using their game as the tool. Winners could go on to get a writing job in Canada, runners-up get mugs and T-shirts. Well, it's interesting to me at least! Entries in by January 30th.

The Contest That Could Become Your Career

An unique opportunity for anyone aged 18 or over to enter their original stageplay in a contest with a top prize of £15,000 and a year's residency at the Royal Exchange Theatre. Entries are anonymous, and must be in by April 30th 2006.

Write the Dream

The lovely nascent is running a wee writing competition over in our forums. My Side of the Story wants you to write a story in the first person about a completely despicable yet self-justifying character.

Update: Today is supposed to be the last day of voting but at the time of writing this, only 3 people have bothered!  Please take a look at the entries and cast your vote.

My Side of the Story

The Belvedere Writers' Club are running a P2P writing contest, notable only because their write-up of it is quite (intentionally) funny. £5 stake / £100 top prize, plus publication in a book they're putting out.

Belvedere Writers' Club

The Kilkenny International Swift Society offers a bounty of 1000 Euros for an outstanding unpublished satirical poem, in the spirit and style of Jonathan Swift, on a topic of current and relevant social/political interest. Sounds like fun, and you've got until next February to get your entries in.

Swift Society

If you're West Yorkshire bound in the coming weeks, head on over to Off The Shelf, the increasingly-popular festival of reading and writing, which has had to extend beyond the usual fortnight to fit in events from Jamie Oliver, Gyles Brandreth, Merle Collins, Monty Don, Jasper Fforde, Shirley Hughes, Marina Lewycka, Roger McGough, David Nicholls, Dave (Darth Vader) Prowse, Prunella Scales, Claire Tomalin, Rose Tremain and Professor Lord Robert Winston to name just a few! It runs from 15-29th October, and Stephen Fry is already sold out. Prunella Scales isn't.

Off the Shelf

Think you could write a novel in a month? That's exactly the big idea behind National Novel Writing Month, a campaign which helps you devote the whole of November to creating your own 50,000 word manuscript. As they put it, "NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved." Then again, as they also entertainingly put it, "Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap." And Lord knows, I don't need a month to do that.

National Novel Writing Month

Nope, no joke there. Just a series of events through October and November, brought to you by South Cumbrian writers' group Word Market. Their Word Party kicks off October 21st with a session from the BBC Writers' Room. Plenty more besides, so if you're up that way or fancy a break in the Lake District, then see their programme of events for details.

Word Party