*Please enter Curae by sending your entry to thecuraeprize@gmail.com as a word doc attachment ONLY. Make sure your name is NOT on this document, only the title of your work.

*One entry per person

*Please identify that you are a current and unpaid carer. We do not require proof, but please do not go into great detail about your role. To reiterate, this competition is not for people working in a volunteer or paid role for an organisation or charity. If you are still not sure you are eligible, refer to the NHS definition as given on the Home page (click on the link above and check).

*There is no theme. You can write about anything you want to and it can OF COURSE be about the caring role if this is what you want

*Entries open on 1st January, 2025 and close on 1st March, 2025. Please try to avoid entering at 11.55 pm on 28th February (and 2025 is NOT a leap year!)

*Work sent must be a complete piece and not an extract from something HOWEVER, if you are working on a full-length book project, feel free to extract and develop an extract as a STANDALONE piece. If you working on a full poetry collection, OF COURSE, you can use a poem from this.

*Work entered must not have been published anywhere, including online and on your personal website/blog, or performed, written on social media. It must not be under contract with an agent or publisher at time of entry.

*You can be a first-time writer, or published in whatever form – and you may be agented or unagented. We make it a wide field because there are far more unpaid carers than many realise

*There is NO expectation that, at any stage, you will speak publicly about your caring role. I am well aware that this may be invasive of your privacy and that your cared-for person (or people) has (or have) agency.

*For short fiction and non-fiction (including creative non-fiction – so a mixture of the two elements), the word limit is 4,000; poetry is a single poem of not more than 40 lines.

*Please format your document as double spaced (or 1.5 or 1.15 if that’s easier for you) and give it a title.

*DO NOT – saying this again! – put your name on the word document, as all entries should be anonymous. As soon as your entry is received, it is separated from your email. Last year, we found that as well as experienced writers, published writers, we had writers making something for the first time. The shortlist reflects that.

*No feedback is offered to unsuccessful writers: we just don’t have capacity.

*Judges reserve the right to remove any entry which is offensive, defamatory or discriminatory to groups of people.

*Please state in the email to which your entry is attached that you have understood the term ‘unpaid carer’ and that you are currently in this role

*Please state in the same email – this is entirely up to you though! – if you wish to be considered for additional mentoring because you are chronically ill/disabled, a working class writer, LGBTQ, of refugee status or a writer of colour.

*Please don’t be embarrassed to share if you have a specific learning difficulty which has made being an entrant hard – such as with checking spelling. My background is in teaching and I get it, so do not worry about that AT ALL. It is helpful for us to know when reading though.

*Shortlisted and winning entries will be emailed, prior to announcement on the HOME PAGE of this site and across social media, where you may find it easier to type #Curae (going by 2023 experience). We will not be contacting writers who are not listed, other than with an automatic response to say your entry was received.

*If you are a winner, you must be prepared to work with a professional editor before publication. It will be nice, I promise, but there may be a small degree of change.