Spectator Competition: Back to it
Comp. 3467 invited you to submit a passage in the style of a classic school story to mark the start…
Spectator Competition: Down the middle
Comp. 3465 invited you to write a centre-aligned poem, with a hidden message running down the middle. The brief was…
Spectator Competition: Ods against
For this Odyssey-inspired Competition 3464 you were invited to submit a passage or poem in which a modern man (or…
Spectator Competition: Slave to the ’rithm
Competition 3462 invited you to submit a short story in which the protagonist lets an algorithm take charge of their…
Spectator Competition: Feverish
Competition 3459 invited you to submit a passage that lavishly depicted a heatwave. The entries accumulated languorously, replete with detail…
Spectator Competition: Resignation
Comp. 3458 invited you to submit a fictional character’s stepping-down letter. A new light was cast on various figures, from…
Spectator Competition: Semiquincentennial
Comp. 3456 invited you to mark 250 years since the birth of the United States with a poem. There were…
Spectator Competition: In the field
Comp. 3455 invited you to supply some local response (in prose or poetry) to the absence of Glastonbury Festival, which…
Spectator Competition: The secret is…
Competition 3453 invited you to describe a new, infallible personal regime that promised to make one healthy, rich and irresistible.…
Spectator Competition: All kicking off
Competition 3452 invited you to write an ode to the World Cup. The entries flew in and many of them…
Spectator Competition: Shrink away
Comp. 3449 invited you to psychoanalyse, in the manner of Freud/Jung etc, a 2026 phenomenon. In a small but accomplished…
Spectator Competition: Ouch
Competition 3447 invited you to outdo Kingsley Amis in detailing a hang-over from hell, but in the style of another…
Spectator Competition: Critics amass
Comp. 3446 invited you to write a critic’s review of a fictional pub or restaurant or hotel etc. I bit…
Spectator Competition: Take heed
Comp. 3444 invited you to submit a Hilaire Belloc-style cautionary tale for our times. This one was last set in…
Spectator Competition: Punning wild
Comp. 3443 was inspired by Brian Bilston’s ‘Remembrance of Things Pasta’ which begins: She blew her fusilli, my pretty penne,…
Spectator Competition: Budding poets
Comp. 3441 invited you to use the opening of Philip Larkin’s poem ‘Trees’ as a starting point for your own.…
Spectator Competition: Hope stings
Competition 3438 was inspired by the 1986 film Clockwise, in which John Cleese is constantly impeded in his attempt to…
Spectator Competition: Wintry look
Competition 3437 invited you to submit a passage or poem incorporating the line ‘Why, what’s the matter, That you have…
Spectator Competition: Veg out
Competition 3435 invited you to write a poem that included Wendy Cope’s immortal line ‘A happier cabbage you never did…
Spectator Competition: I’ll take Manhattan
Competition 3434 was prompted by the 400th anniversary of the retrospectively controversial purchase of Manhattan island by the Dutchman Peter…
Spectator Competition: Alternative facts
Competition 3432 invited you to submit a passage containing some AI-style ‘hallucinations’ (it would be just as anthropomorphic to call…
Spectator Competition: Write Christmas
Competition 3429 invited you to tell the story of the Nativity in the style of a well-known writer. There were…
Spectator Competition: Frankenpoem
Comp. 3428 was inspired by Rose Ruane’s Larkin/Shelley mash-up (many thanks to Bill Greenwell for flagging this up): They Oz…
Spectator Competition: A letter from Jane
Competition 3425 was prompted by Gill Hornby, a biographer of Jane Austen, telling an audience at the Cheltenham Literature Festival…
