CANCEL The Dordogne

Unfortunately, we cannot run the awards ceremony as planned in the Dordogne. We had support from a millionaire – who was also a Fantasy writer – to host this event in France, and free access to luxury accommodation.

The issues with the quality of entries into the SFF Prize, led to this arrangement, a mutually beneficial one, to fall apart. This patron withdrew his support, and without it, there is no way to go ahead with the awards ceremony there.

We’ve been trying desperately to find a patron or an investor to replace this millionaire, but we have not succeeded in securing a firm commitment of a venue or of money.

This means we will have to settle for a different free or low-cost venue. We haven’t found anywhere suitable as yet. So, we will have to delay the ceremony.

I appreciate that this isn’t great news for the winners who want to be presented their prizes and enjoy that moment of acclaim. I can only apologise for this. I couldn’t have done any more to try to make it happen. We managed it the last two years, and I hope we’ll pull it together this time. We’ll be in touch with more details when we get it sorted.

WE GAVE 100+ WRITERS THIS COURSE FOR FREE – TO LEARN TIPS, HACKS, POINTERS, FROM OUR PUBLISHED WINNERS

We hope that these 100+ short story writers and poets enjoyed the course.

When we asked for a donation from these 100+ people only 1 person donated to cover the costs of running the course.

We’d like to thanks the 6 Plaza Prizes winner who contributed. 6 very talented, published writers, working on the cutting edge of World Literature. Conor Montague. Fiona Dignan. Todd Murphy. Sherry Cassells. Camilla Macpherson. Conor McAnally. They put together 7 cracking modules which challenge you to try 20 exercises that are designed to improve your work:

 

1. The Power of the Title
2. Opening Lines That Hook
3. Building Dynamic Characters
4. Using Setting as Character
5. Crafting Plot and Pacing
6. Writing Effective Dialogue
7. Crafting an Unforgettable Ending

 

Sorry. Without support we cannot run the course and will be closing it this week. We’re disappointed there just isn’t the appreciation for the value of the tutor’s work, or enough of a sense of community amongst entrants of The Plaza Prizes, to make it in any way financially viable.

Winners
(titles listed in order)

The comments below are from our judge, Anthony Joseph.

1st Prize: ‘VW Caddy’ by Peter Doolan

A powerful evocation of love, loss and remorse. The poem — and its performance are intimate, as if the speaker is sitting next to you, and the sentiments offer a rare vulnerability, in language that is contemporary, direct and crafted with an ear for music and form. There is also a structural integrity here, which is cogent and purposeful, giving the poem shape and narrative form. Brilliant.

2nd Prize: ‘Dirt Citadel’ by Lee Michael White
I loved the musicality of this poem, the generosity of the poet writing selflessly, through the consciousness of a child. There’s a richly musical approach here, and the poet show’s real skill in their use of language, weaving rhythm within small spaces. Its also a poem which covers a wide array of emotion, from sadness to hope, in the child’s creation of an imaginary space.

3rd Prize: ‘The separation’ by Jenny Pollak
There is an emotive approach to this poem which avoids sentimentality – a difficult task considering the subject matter. The poet makes original uses of language and meaning, the colour red acting as a metaphor which threads itself through the poem.

Shortlist

‘The Dead Speak’ by April Schofield

‘Mercredi and Below’ by Peter Doolan

‘Musique Concrete’ by Gillie Robic

‘Tornadoes and Other Disasters’ by Jenny Pollak

‘The Demolished Exorcism Room’ by Paul McMahon

‘I Stepped Into My Father’s Shoes’ by Paul McMahon

‘The Road Trip We Never Took’ by Dena Molen

Congrats to the winners, and all 10 audio-poets on our shortlist. Sorry about the extended delay in judging. Anthony apparently had a car accident in Sicily and that set everything back a month. Nothing we could do about that. He’s okay now though, no damage done.

 

Due to the increasing costs of production this year we need your help to fund our annual anthology. Please donate if you value what we do. Fill out the form below to contribute.

We need to raise £5000/$6000 to cover the costs of our anthology this year. Entry fees do not cover these costs. In years 1 and 2, I personally helped fund the editorial, proof-reading, formatting and publishing costs.

Some people think literary contests are money making machines. They aren’t, at all. I set up The Plaza Prizes in 2022 because I wanted to pay it back to writers. When Covid-19 hit, I lost my writing job. I was forced to rely on Society of Authors and The Royal Society of Literature grants to help save my house from repossession.

It took two years to sell my house. When I finally did, I put this capital into The Plaza Prizes to pay it back to writers because I was very grateful to the community of writers for saving me from homelessness, destitution, and likely, suicide. (It also gave me a mission at a time in life – 53 years old – when a man needs a mission to stay halfway sane in a mad world.)

We recruit Booker, TS Eliot, Pulitzer, US National Book Award winning judges to try to give new poets and writers an international platform for their writing. Hundreds of talented, aspiring writers and poets have been published in The Plaza Prizes Anthology 1 & 2. If you appreciate the value of what we do for you – please support the publication of The Plaza Prizes Anthology 3 by making a donation.

Since last week we gave 125 people FREE ACCESS (worth $200 each) to our Writing Winning Short Stories Course on Teachable. Only 3 people donated anything to the anthology. Not exactly give and take…

It would be good if there was a much bigger show of support.

Simon Kerr

MD The Plaza Prizes

 

We have now completed the judging process for this prize.

Only 7 entries qualified to make the longlist. We have notified these writers but will not be posting the titles for reasons which I will explain below.

We normally have a longlist of 20 and a shortlist of 10. Unfortunately, the quality of submissions was simply not there this year to justify that approach. (AI checks revealed parts of 5 entries to be composed artificially!!)

The Plaza Prizes primary aim is to promote top quality writing. We’re sorry to have to report to that we won’t be passing the 7 longlisted works to the final judge. This decision has nothing to do with Michael J. Sullivan, or his wife, Robin.

This is very disappointing for us – a lot went into creating this unique contest. I know it will be disappointing for all entrants. It’s never nice to be told that your work is not as outstanding as it needs to be to win an international prize.

The Plaza Prizes reserve the right to not award prizes in circumstances like this. We also reserve the right not to pass the work onto the final judge.

 

Due to the increasing costs of production this year we need your help to fund our annual anthology. Please donate if you value what we do. Fill out the form below to contribute.

We need to raise £5000/$6000 to cover the costs of our anthology this year. Entry fees do not cover these costs. In years 1 and 2, I personally helped fund the editorial, proof-reading, formatting and publishing costs.

Some people think literary contests are money making machines. They aren’t, at all. I set up The Plaza Prizes in 2022 because I wanted to pay it back to writers. When Covid-19 hit, I lost my writing job. I was forced to rely on Society of Authors and The Royal Society of Literature grants to help save my house from repossession.

It took two years to sell my house. When I finally did, I put this capital into The Plaza Prizes to pay it back to writers because I was very grateful to the community of writers for saving me from homelessness, destitution, and likely, suicide. (It also gave me a mission at a time in life – 53 years old – when a man needs a mission to stay halfway sane in a mad world.)

We recruit Booker, TS Eliot, Pulitzer, US National Book Award winning judges to try to give new poets and writers an international platform for their writing. Hundreds of talented, aspiring writers and poets have been published in The Plaza Prizes Anthology 1 & 2. If you appreciate the value of what we do for you – please support the publication of The Plaza Prizes Anthology 3 by making a donation.

Since last week we gave 125 people FREE ACCESS (worth $200 each) to our Writing Winning Short Stories Course on Teachable. Only 3 people donated anything to the anthology. Not exactly give and take…

It would be good if there was a much bigger show of support.

Simon Kerr

MD The Plaza Prizes

 

Shortlist
(titles listed in no particular order)

Top 10

The Dead Speak

Dirt Citadel

Mercredi and Below

VW Cady

Musique Concrete

Tornadoes and Other Disasters

(The Separation)

The Demolished Exorcism Room

I Stepped Into My Father’s Shoes

The Road Trip We Never Took

Congrats to all 10 audio-poets on our shortlist. Check back next week for the winners.

Please note: we do not publish names until the judging process is fully complete. We’ll publish names with the final results, the winners, short-listed, long-listed. (We publish your name because you asked us to.)

 

Long List
(titles listed in no particular order)

Top 20

The Dead Speak

Dirt Citadel

Mercredi and Below

VW Cady

Migraine Bulletins

On Smallness

I Used to Hate Jazz

Mothers of the Lost

Musique Concrete

A Good Death

Tornadoes and Other Disasters

(The Separation)

The Demolished Exorcism Room

I Stepped Into My Father’s Shoes

Break-up at the Bus-stop

She Who Paints The Threshold

Dopamine Deficient

Prometheus

Charcoal Churning Taffy

The Road Trip We Never Took

There were 201 entries, including FREE ENTRY bursaries.

Congrats to all those 20 audio-poets on our long list. Check back next weekend for the shortlist.

Please note: we do not publish names until the judging process is fully complete. We’ll publish names with the final results, the winners, short-listed, long-listed. (We publish your name because you asked us to.)

 

FOR FREE – LEARN TIPS, HACKS, POINTERS, FROM OUR PUBLISHED WINNERS

Are you a short story writer? Are you entering your stories into literary competitions like The Plaza Prizes? Are you winning? Are you getting shortlisted or longlisted?

Do writers who win The Plaza Prizes do things differently? What do they do? How? Why? What critical errors are they avoiding?

We decided to put together a Teachable course to help entrants of The Plaza Prizes to improve their work and the likelihood of winning or placing on the short and long list.

6 of our winners contributed. 6 very talented, published writers, working on the cutting edge of World Literature. Conor Montague. Fiona Dignan. Todd Murphy. Sherry Cassells. Camilla Macpherson. Conor McAnally. They put together 7 cracking modules which challenge you to try 20 exercises that are designed to improve your work:

 

1. The Power of the Title
2. Opening Lines That Hook
3. Building Dynamic Characters
4. Using Setting as Character
5. Crafting Plot and Pacing
6. Writing Effective Dialogue
7. Crafting an Unforgettable Ending

 

You will ALSO get 2 FREE ebooks of The Plaza Prizes Anthology 1 & 2 as coursebooks to read and use for reference.

Up until midnight on Thursday 21st August 2025 you can get the course for FREE. That is a massive $199.99 discount off the Teachable course by clicking on this link:

SIGN UP HERE NOW FOR FREE

HAVE FUN STUDYING FOR FREE. NEXT TIME IT COULD BE YOU WINNING.

Due to the increasing costs of production this year we need your help to fund our annual anthology. Please donate if you value what we do. Fill out the form below to contribute.

We need to raise £5000/$6000 to cover the costs of our anthology this year. Entry fees do not cover these costs. In years 1 and 2, I personally helped fund the editorial, proof-reading, formatting and publishing costs.

Some people think literary contests are money making machines. They aren’t. I set up The Plaza Prizes in 2022 because I wanted to pay it back to writers. When Covid-19 hit, I lost my writing job. I was forced to rely on Society of Authors and The Royal Society of Literature grants to help save my house from repossession.

It took two years to sell my house. When I finally did, I put this capital into The Plaza Prizes to pay it back to writers because I was very grateful to the community of writers for saving me from homelessness, destitution, and likely, suicide. (It also gave me a mission at a time in life – 53 years old – when a man needs a mission to stay halfway sane in a mad world.)

We recruit Booker, TS Eliot, Pulitzer, US National Book Award winning judges to try to give new poets and writers an international platform for their writing. Hundreds of talented, aspiring writers and poets have been published in The Plaza Prizes Anthology 1 & 2. If you appreciate the value of what we do for you – please support the publication of The Plaza Prizes Anthology 3 by making a donation.

Thanks for your support!

Simon Kerr

MD The Plaza Prizes