I love writing competitions. I love it when people pay it forward and help our planet. This competition is all that and more.
The Magic Oxygen Literary Prize is a truly unique writing competition. The
inaugural contest took place last year and the organisers, Magic Oxygen
Publishing, planted a tree for every entry and gave away £3,000 in prize
money. They also started building an urgently needed classroom at Kundeni
Primary School in Bore, Kenya.
There are around 1,500 trees in the Word Forest so far and things are about to get busy once
more as the Dorset based publishing house open the door for entries to this year’s competition.
Tracey and Simon West are the drivers behind this prestigious annual prize for literary excellence
in short stories and poetry. Just like last year, its impressive prize fund comprises £1,000 1st, £300
2nd, £100 3rd and two Highly Commended prizes of £50 in each category, kindly sponsored by
Pilgrim.
As well as nurturing fresh literary talent, they also hope the contest inspires others to help reduce
the world’s carbon footprint. The location for the word forest was chosen by forestry expert, Ru
Hartwell, founding director of Treeflights the first carbon offset planting project of its kind. He’s also
actively involved in several other worldwide planting projects, including Size of Wales, TreeNation
and Carbon Link amongst others.
Ru explains, ‘This unique Word Forest is actively reintroducing tropical biodiversity and
helping to keep us all a little bit cooler because trees planted near the equator are best
placed to draw carbon from the atmosphere. It’s also providing a longterm income stream
for the community and will eventually provide them with an urgently needed new classroom
for 300 Kenyan children too.’
Alex Katana is the planting and building manager based in Bore. He adds, ‘The whole
community are incredibly grateful for the investment in the village and the teachers and I
were very happy to receive a copy of the book. The people of Bore really appreciate the
effort Simon and Tracey are making to change the lives of Bore people. Everybody wants
to read the book and we are going to share it happily. On behalf of all members here, I say
thanks abundantly.’
Visit MagicOxygen.co.uk to submit your entry and to find out more about the Word Forest.
Ongoing details about the Magic Oxygen Literary Prize and plans for the Word Forest will be
posted on the Magic Oxygen blog.
Competition In Brief:
Prize fund: £3,000
Short Stories: up to 4,000 words
Poetry: up to 50 lines
Entry fee: £5 per submission
Entrants to receive GPS coordinates of their tree via Google Earth link
Global entries invited from writers age 16+
Open for Entries: 1st July 2015
Closing Date: 31st December 2015
Shortlist Announced: no later than 14th February 2016
Winner Announced: TBC
Review & Media:
High res images of the Word Forest and further quotes from Magic Oxygen, Ru Hartwell and the
community in Bore are available upon request.
Contact:
Simon West: Editor, Magic Oxygen Publishing
Telephone: 07896 884 114
Email: simon@MagicOxygen.co.uk
Website: MagicOxygen.co.uk
Ru Hartwell: Magic Oxygen Word Forest Coordinator
Telephone: 07773 001 132
Email: ruhartwell@gmail.com
Website: CarbonLink.org
authors
Jo Linsdell
Literary prize
Magic Oxygen Literary Prize
The Writing Competition that’s Planting a Forest in Africa
writers
writing
writing competitions
writing contest
0 Comments
I love to hear from you. So feel free to comment, but keep in mind the basics of blog etiquette — no spam, no profanity, no slander, etc.
Thanks for being an active part of the Writers and Authors community.