Editor Interview: Hysteria Writing Competition

Stories for Women

I love Myslexia.

Jostein Gaarder, Alexander McCall Smith and Salley Vickers.

It is specifically for women 'of a certain age'. Mostly our readers will be users of the Hysterectomy Association as the publication supports its work.

Read the guidelines and the rules for entry. Too many entries fail to make it through because they don't follow instructions.

Upto 2,000 words. Not horror or erotica. No personal details on the manuscript. The file name and title are the same.

Submissions more than 2,000 words.

Cover letters are not important to us as the submission process is through our online shop.

All entries are submitted to our panel of judges. They complete a short questionnaire about each entry and at the end of the competition we tally the results. It's surprisingly effective and consistent.

As long as it meets the criteria then all pieces will be considered equally.

It depends on the stage of the contest. Before the competition opens each year I need to set it up and create some marketing materials. Once it opens I send out press releases, emails, newsletters and updates through the social networks on a regular basis. I am also responsible for getting entries to our judging panel for them to read and review. Once the competition closes I use a spreadsheet to determine our winners, check that these are correct in the opinion of the judges. I then notify the winners and start the process of compiling this years anthology.