WordDoctors.co.uk

Dear All,

I want to draw your attention to a short story and poetry competition run by FLOW (Forces Literature Organisation Worldwide), which is a site I advertise widely at work. It is a good example of how poetry can help the injured or tortured soul to find a way out of their darkness, or "tell it like it is" - much better than causing bedlam. See what you think:

The 2009 FLOW for ALL competitions are now open!

The closing date for submissions to both competitions is April 30th 2009.

Every year we receive poems and stories from all over the world. This year we are having two FREE-TO-ENTER competitions – one short story competition and one poetry competition.

All Stories and Poems submitted to us will be showcased on our forums and then voted on by members and visitors/guests.

To submit a story email it to Stories@ForcesStories.com

To submit a poem email it to Poems@ForcesPoetry.com

Two books will be published in November this year. The top 20 stories will be published in our book of stories. The top 65 poems will be published in our book of poetry, which we hope will be as successful as our first poetry anthology, ‘Voices of the Poppies’.

Conditions of Entry/rules:

Short story entries must be a maximum of 3000 words.

Poetry entries must be a maximum of 700 words.

All entries will ideally have a Forces-related theme or reflect on the human price that is all too often paid in times of war. You do not need to have been in a war or to have personally lost someone – you may just wish to write about something related to a conflict from any era or place. We do publish work on other topics, however if poems or stories are equally voted for we will choose a poem or story with a Forces theme over another topic.

By Forces theme we mean in any way connected to the armed services (of any country). For example, a wife, girlfriend, daughter, son friend etc writing about someone being away at war; work about someone they have lost in war; someone who is suffering from PTSD; a poem or story about war or the armed services.