The Yeovil Literary Prize and the role of the YCAA

For many years now the Yeovil Community Arts Association (YCAA) (a registered charity No: 299372), has provided an opportunity for writers from around the world to enter our writing competition. The aims of the Yeovil Literary Prize are threefold:

• to promote Creative Writing,
• to provide a genuine opportunity for aspiring writers, everywhere
• to support the YCAA in its future role by raising funds

This is the eleventh year of the Yeovil Literary Prize and it is now fully realising its aims. The UK and international response to the Prize has been outstanding with wide-ranging quality writing being entered for judging. It is very clear that there is a huge community of talented writers who thrive on the opportunity to develop their craft. We are proud to offer an award to novelists who are not well-represented among literary prizes elsewhere. Several past winners and Highly Commended authors have now been published.  We know this competition is watched keenly by agents and publishers for thriving talent.

There are two ways to enter the competition; by using the postal system, or online using PayPal; its ease of use has encouraged a significant increase in entries. We look forward to even more this year as our writing contest opened on 1st January 2014.

All profits from this volunteer-run competition are ploughed back into the community to sponsor local talent in their study of the arts, and to host cultural events with renowned speakers. We have reached out to all the arts including poetry, screenplay writing, music, painting, writing, photography and garden design, as well as the influence of specialist books, film and new authors. We also host an annual YCAA Man Booker Debate in partnership with the Yeovil Waterstones store.

We participated in the first Yeovil Literary Festival in September 2013. This highly enjoyable weekend was opened by the YCAA Literary Dinner on Thursday 19 September 2013. Our speaker was Santa Montefiore, and we’re delighted that Santa has agreed to be our short story judge for the 2015 Prize.

The second Yeovil Literary Festival will run from 6th until 9th November 2014. The YCAA has forged a strong bond with The Octagon Theatre, Hendford, Yeovil, BA21 1UX, where we host our by-monthly café style events in the Johnson Studio. Full details of the YCAA activities are available on our website at www.yeovilarts.co.uk.

There is an additional award given by the YCAA each year to the Western Gazette Best Local Writer of £100, and the winner in 2013 was Elizabeth McLaren for her poignant short story Lola the Carolla.
The Yeovil Literary Prize is operated and managed by a dedicated team of volunteers and all details of how to enter can be found on www.yeovilprize.co.uk. The writing competition runs from 1st January and closes on 31st May each year.

Send postal entries to:  YCAA, The Octagon Theatre, YEOVIL, BA20 1UX


Liz Pike is Secretary of the Yeovil Community Arts Association.  She is also a member of the Yeovil Cre8ive Writers and Yeovil Art Group. The YCAA administers the annual, international writing competition The Yeovil Literary Prize. Liz is passionate about the written word, having had success writing short stories, and enjoys two reading groups, one of which is the YCAA Lunchtime Book Group.