FIRST WRITING COMPETITION
Our competition to win £250 has now closed.
Firsts is a new writing competition for students from years 7–13, set up by the University of Suffolk and Primadonna festival. The deadline for entries has now passed but you can still watch Ashley’s videos in which he shares his tips and expertise in Creative Writing.
Write 800 words on the theme of ‘new beginnings’ to be in with a chance of a cash prize and a one-to-one tutorial with award-winning author Ashley Hickson-Lovence. And if writing isn’t your thing, you can submit a poem or song lyrics (minimum five stanzas), a play, film or TV scene (minimum five pages) or a cartoon strip (minimum five pages) instead.
Entries to Firsts will not be judged on grammar or spelling but on their originality and raw potential. We’re looking for the best new writing talent – take a First step forward with us.
Entries close on 10 May 2024. Students from any secondary school in East Anglia are eligible to enter.
A shortlist of entries in two ages groups – years 7-9, and years 10-13 – will be put forward to a team of professional editors at HarperCollins who will select a winner in each category. Winning students will be awarded £250, a one-to-one creative writing tutorial with Ashley, and formal feedback on their writing from the HarperCollins team. They will also showcase their work at a special event at the 2024 Primadonna festival in July.
Ashley’s Top tops before you get started
Watch Ashley offer some of his expert insight into writing great stories. Ashley was born in London in 1991 and is a former secondary school English teacher. He is currently completing his PhD in Creative and Critical Writing at the University of East Anglia and is a Lecturer of Creative Writing at the Arts University Bournemouth. In his spare time, using his experience as a football referee himself, he formally observes semi-professional referees for the FA. His debut novel, The 392, was released in April 2019.
MEET OUR WINNERS
We set up the Primadonna Prize because we wanted to open up access to the publishing industry.
We wanted more people to be able to tell their stories. And we wanted everyone to feel welcome to participate. None of these people had ever been published before. Come along to this year’s festival and experience Primadonna’s magic for yourself. You never know, it could be you next.
These are the kind of small scale but life-changing impacts that Primadonna is all about. We know it changes lives.
Elissa Soave
Elissa Soave is a Scottish writer. She won the inaugural Primadonna Prize in 2019, her prize being representation by Primadonna-agent Cathryn Summerhayes. Summerhayes negotiated a publishing contract with HQ, Harper Collins and Elissa’s first novel Ginger and Me was published by them in July 2022. Elissa was on the judging panel of the 2023 Primadonna Prize. Her new novel 'Graffiti Girls' is released in November 2024.
Honoria Beirne
Honoria Beirne was the winner of the Prize in 2020, also winning representation by Cath Summerhayes. Honoria was a finalist in the ‘Richard and Judy / WHSmith Search for a Bestseller’ prize, and her short fiction has been recognised in a number of competitions, including the Bridport, Royal Academy Pindrop, Fish, Bristol and Brighton prizes. She was longlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award in 2020.
Gayathiri Kamalakanthan
Our 2021 winner was Gayathiri Kamalakanthan, a Tamil poet, playwright and sex education facilitator. Their work thinks about the shapeability of the future, what it takes to decolonise a body and the push and pull of mothers. Gayathiri has developed work with 45North, Kali Theatre and Oxford Playhouse, and will be showcasing their first play Period Parrrty in 2023. Gayathiri won representation with Cath Summerhayes as winner of the Primadonna Prize for Fiction 2021 and is currently working on their debut novel and a collection of poems under the mentorship of Griot’s Well.
AND THERE'S MORE...
Came as a festival-goer, left with a book deal!
Louise Mumford
Louise was born in South Wales where she still lives today. In the summer of 2019 Louise experienced a once-in-a-lifetime moment: she was discovered as a new writer by her publisher at the Primadonna Festival. Louise’s debut novel Sleepless was published in December 2020 by HQ HarperCollins. A UK Amazon Kindle Top 50 bestseller, it was the Asda Karin Slaughter Killer Read for July 2021. Her second thriller, The Safe House, was published in May 2022 and her latest novel, The Festival, is published in August 2024.
Anita Lehmann
Anita won the inaugural Make Sioned Laugh competition at Primadonna 2019, performing in front of (then) Radio 4 commissioner for comedy Sioned Wiliam. She is a prize winning children’s author and also writes for adults under the pseudonym Walburga Appleseed, publishing The Princess and the Prick in October 2020 with a new book coming out in autumn 2024.
