8/30 – Two ab-fab UK short story competitions

God bless America, but we do love us some UK prize money! With the British Pound Sterling currently equal to roughly $1.50 in U.S. cold hard cash, winning a nice solid £100 is almost like winning the lottery. (Okay, so it’s about $155, but that’s $55 more than a straight-up U.S. prize of $100, innit?)

This week’s prizes are exclusively British in nature, but seem to be open to global competitors, and therefore are completely worth the exchange rates and hassles at your bank when you want to take out a money order in BPS. We <3 the Commonwealth and its refusal to submit to the dominant Euro. How rebellious of you!

Whitechapel Society Short Story Competition

The Whitechapel Society is “London’s premier society for the study of Jack the Ripper and Victorian/Edwardian social history.”

Prize: £100

Entry Fee: £5 (2 for £7.50)

Word Count: 3,000 words

Deadline: October 2, 2010

Extras: Must use the opening lines “Everyone called it the double event. Two women on the same night, less than an hour apart, and less than half a mile apart. Things were definitely getting out of control….”

For more information, see the Whitechapel Society’s website, here.

Fleeting Magazine’s Best Short Story Writing in the World Contest

Fleeting Magazine is “a global repository of the best short stories, poetry and fiction extracts from new and established writers.”

Prize: £100

Entry Fee: £1

Word Count: 40 lines or less for poetry, short stories/flash fiction of up to 2,500 words

Deadline: September 30, 2010

For more information, see Fleeting Magazine’s website, here.

Hat tip to FFW for this week’s contests!