Welcome to the Sir Terry Pratchett Writing Competition - celebrating his amazing work and inspirational life.
Sir Terry filled his books with fun and creative re-workings of old stories. He cheerfully nicked characters such as Father Christmas, mixed him up with ancient seasonal deities, and produced the Hogfather. Then he took the god Dionysus- the Greek god of wine- and created his logical extension, Bilious the 'Oh God of Hangovers'. He also used quite a few characters and atmosphere from classical literature, especially Shakespeare.
To celebrate our first Sir Terry Pratchett Day, 28th April 2025, we are offering you the chance to put on Sir Terry's hat and to have a go at writing something yourself.
You've got 500 words to take a character from Greek mythology, twist them, play with them and see what you come up with. Be playful, shift things around, mix them up, think about structure and remember: show, don't tell.
The rules:
- Competition open to anyone aged 16 or over.
- The text must be 500 words, not including the title.
- The text must be all your own work.
- As per Terry Pratchett's wishes, no fan fiction or spin-off from the Discworld universe.
- At the end of your text, please state the myth that was your starting point (not included in the 500 words).
- Entries must be typed, double spaced in an easy to read font such as Aptos or Times Roman, and emailed as a doc(x)/PDF text with the title but NO NAME. Please put your name and the title of your piece into your email when you submit your work into the competition.
The text will remain the copyright of the author, the decision of the judges will be final and no correspondence will be entered into.
Deadline for submissions is Sunday 13th April at 23:59. Entries are to be sent to events.bristolgalleries@waterstones.com
We hope to see many of you attend the award ceremony!
