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