Writing Competition
To celebrate Kemptown Bookshop’s 50th anniversary, we are running a writing competition on the theme of bookshops. The winners will be included in an anthology published in September 2026.
General Information
What do you love about bookshops? Perhaps you have a favourite childhood memory in a bookshop, or something more recent. Whether it’s a tiny secondhand bookshop, your local indie bookshop or a world-renowned classic like Shakespeare and Company in Paris, we want to hear how bookshops have inspired you.
Why not put pen to paper and enter our writing competition?
It is open to writers of any nationality writing in English aged 16 and over at the time of the closing date – midnight GMT on 31st December 2025. We welcome everyone, however you identify or others perceive you. The submission fee is £10, and entries are limited to one piece per writer. There are a limited number of subsidised entries for marginalised writers – email competition@kemptownbookshop.co.uk to apply.
Winning entries will be published in the anthology. All winners will receive a copy of the book and be invited to the launch party.
Timeline
· Saturday 1 November: competition opens for entry
· Midnight Wednesday 31 December: competition closes
· January-March 2026: judging
· April 2026: winners announced and anthology cover reveal
· September 2026: Publication launch party
Categories
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Flash Fiction
Up to 250 words
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Short Story
Up to 3,000 words
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Poetry
No more than 42 lines
Meet the judges
Anna Jefferson
Anna Jefferson is Co-Director of New Writing South and Co-founder of Forthwrite Festival, celebrating women writers over 50. She is a fiction writer and playwright, having written for stage and screen since 2005. Anna has published three novels, Winging It (2020) and Nailing It (2021), both published with Orion and Happiness Lives Next Door, published with Penguin Random House, Germany (2024.) She is currently working on her fourth novel.
Cathy Hayward
Cathy is a writer, bookseller, and manages a creative writing school. In 2022, after a lifetime pottering around bookshops, she bought Kemptown Bookshop and has worked to create a community hub which supports local authors and aspiring writers. Her debut novel The Girl in the Midnight Maze was released in 2024, both The Last Daughter of Highdown Hall and The Missing Mother of Rose Cottage are due in 2026.
Roy Mcfarlane
Roy is a poet, writer and former youth and community worker born in Birmingham of Jamaican parentage. He is currently the National Canal Laureate and the former Birmingham Poet Laureate and Starbucks Poet in Residence and co-editor of Celebrate Wha? Ten Black British Poets from the Midlands (Smokestack). He has three poetry collections by Nine Arches Press: Beginning With Your Last Breath, The Healing Next Time and Living by Troubled Waters.
Dr Jess Moriarty
Jess is Principal Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Brighton where she is Course Leader for the Creative Writing MA. She edits a book series for Intellect, and her new book, due out later this year, is called Art as Activism.
Remony Hart
Remony’s bookselling journey began a decade ago at Cirencester indie Octavia’s Bookshop. Three and a half years ago, she moved to Brighton and began working at Kemptown Bookshop. Since then, the focus has been on building it into a community hub and celebrating local authors. She was promoted to bookshop manager in July 2024 as recognition of her hard work.
Sean Campbell
Sean is the founder and editor of époque press, an independent publisher of literary fiction. Sean is passionate about discovering new voices, championing great new works of literary fiction and working with authors who have strong unique voices. Sean loves building close working relationships with authors and engaging them in every stage of bringing their work to publication.
William Shaw
Best-selling crime writer William Shaw publishes his 14th novel The Burning Tide in 2026. He was one of the team behind Brighton's volunteer-run pop-pup bookshop and writing space The Bookmakers.
Submission Information
Submission Information
To submit your entry, pay the entry fee of £10 here using Paypal, then email competition@kemptownbookshop.co.uk with the following subject line KTBS Anthology Submission -[Your Surname] - [Title of your work]
Attached to your email should be:
· Your competition entry in Microsoft Word or similar – include the category you are entering and the title of your work in this document, but not your name as submissions are judged blind. We will match your name and email to your submission if you’re successful.
· Your Paypal receipt for the entry fee.
To read the full terms and conditions, click here.
We look forward to reading your work.
—The Judges