The Great British Summer Haiku Competition - on Twitter!

This is a cool way to use Twitter: Yoko Ono to judge tweet poetry Twitter users are being given the chance to have short, summer poems broadcast on display boards at London's King's Cross station - and judged by the likes of Yoko Ono. Budding Wordsworths can text in their three-line, 17 syllable ditties - known as haikus - from today and one will be shown every 20 minutes to the station's 110,000 daily passengers. (link via metro.co.uk) The Great British Summer Haiku Competition! To enter, just “tweet” your Haiku using your existing Twitter account with the phrase @kingsplace at the begining and it will be picked up by the Kings Place Twitter account. The competition will run between Monday 18 May and Friday 22 May, with the entered Haikus being submitted to Yoko Ono and leading UK poet Jackie Kay MBE for judging.

Write an essay about the natural world for a chance to win a cool prize!

The BBC Wildlife Nature Writer of the Year Award

If you enjoy writing, here is an opportunity to enter a nature writing competition with a very cool prize! The prize is the publication of your story in the Summer 2009 issue of BBC Wildlife (on sale 9 July) and a place on one of three Earthwatch expeditions (flights included), each providing the chance to carry out genuine conservation work. Competitions are open to all residents of the UK, including the Channel Islands, except BBC employees and anyone connected with the competitions. The closing date for entries is 30 April 2009. Download your entry form: NATURE WRITER OF THE YEAR 2009 Good Luck!

Writing competition for kids in the UK: Write a thriller

Write a thriller is a writing competition for children (who live in the UK) aged five to 16. Last month Patrick Ness's incredible book The Knife of Never Letting Go won the Guardian Children's Fiction prize. Patrick Ness will choose one winner and two ­runners-up from a longlist of 20 chosen by Perri Lewis, the Comic editor, and Natalie Doughty, a teacher. The winner will receive a £50 book ­token, a signed copy of the award-winning The Knife of Never Letting Go and a set of 10 children's ­fiction books published by Walker, Patrick Ness's ­publisher. Two runners-up will each ­receive a £25 book token and a signed copy of The Knife of Never Letting Go. All three winning entries will be published on guardian.co.uk. To enter the competition, you must: write a story in no more than 600 words that ... ... Starts with the line: A bell rang and I opened my eyes. I thought, 'Oh, no, not him, anyone but him.' … and finishes with the line: Then she let go of my hand, and I fell and kept falling. The closing date is 11.59pm on November 7 2008. Patrick Ness

Summer travel writing competition (via the Guardian)

If you are an aspiring writer and would like a chance to win a trip to one of five different locations, this is the competition for you; Summer holiday travel writing competition Tell us about your summer holiday and you could win a trip to New Zealand, a German riverboat holiday, flights to New York, a family tipi break in Cornwall or a trip to Damascus The deadline for entries is 11.59pm on Friday August 22 2008. Good luck!

Hay on Wye Short Story Contest

If you like to write, you may be interested in a new writing competition, the Hay on Wye Short Story Contest. Closing date for receipt of entries is 19th July. The theme for 2008 is: "Deception". Authors may enter as many stories as they like. There is an entry fee of £6.00 for each story submitted. The Hay Short Story Contest is a charity event and all proceeds will go to Hay and District Comunity Support. The prizes are as follows: 1st prize £400, 2nd £200, 3rd £100. The famous HayFestival (22 May - 1 June 2008) is an annual literary event at Hay-on-Wye, Wales. If like me, you aren't able to go, there is consolation via virtual visits: the Guardian offers a Hay podcast and Mariella Frostrup presents a special programme from the Hay Festival on BBC Radio 4 Open Book.