Competition
Spectator competition winners: cheerful poems for 2023 after Tennyson
In Competition No. 3281, you were invited to provide 16 lines of cheerful welcome to 2023 in the metre of…
Spectator competition winners: ‘Email’: poems after Auden’s ‘Night Mail’
In Competition No. 3280, you were invited to submit an updating of W.H. Auden’s ‘Night Mail’ entitled ‘Email’. ‘Night Mail’…
Spectator competition winners: lessons in citizenship from Oscar Wilde and P.G. Wodehouse
In Competition No. 3278, you were invited to supply a well-known writer’s response to the question what makes the perfect…
Spectator competition winners: poems to mark the centenary of the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb
In Competition No. 3277, you were invited to supply a poem to mark the 100th anniversary of the discovery of…
Spectator competition winners: celebrity biographies with unfortunate misprints
In Competition No. 3276, you were invited to supply an extract from the memoir of a celebrity with some unfortunate…
Spectator competition winners: Toe-curling analogies
In Competition No. 3274, you were invited to supply toe-curling analogies. Bad writing has attracted some high-brow fans. J.R.R. Tolkien…
Spectator competition winners: Samuel Pepys on Liz Truss
In Competition No. 3272, you were invited to imagine a well-known diarist, real or fictitious, commenting on contemporary events. This…
Spectator competition winners: poems about the Oxford comma
In Competition No. 3271, you were invited to submit a poem about the Oxford comma. Thérèse Coffey’s much-maligned edict about…
Spectator competition winners: short stories entitled ‘The Queue’
In Competition No. 3270, you were invited to submit a short story entitled ‘The Queue’. As well as inspiring this…
Spectator competition winners: poems about Her late Majesty’s favourite things
In Competition No. 3269, you were invited to write a poem about Her late Majesty’s favourite things. Alongside the more…
Spectator competition winners: children’s stories get the horror treatment
In Competition No. 3268, you were invited to recast an extract from children’s literature in the horror genre. In the…
Spectator competition winners: songs from the corporate songbooks of Google and Amazon
In Competition No. 3267, you were invited to supply a song from the songbook of one of today’s corporate giants.…
Spectator competition winners: Philip Larkin’s poems rewritten by other poets
In Competition No. 3266, you were invited to reimagine one of Philip Larkin’s poems in the style of a poet…
Spectator competition winners: Ebenezer Scrooge asks for a loan
In Competition No. 3265, you were invited to submit a letter to a friend asking for a loan as it…
Spectator competition winners: surreptitious sonnets
In Competition No. 3264, you were invited to submit a poem in response to the following journal entry by Wallace…
Spectator competition winners: cosy crime with a topical twist
In Competition No. 3263, you were invited to submit a short story, written in the style of a cosy mystery…
Spectator competition winners: Tory leadership acrostics
In Competition No. 3262, you were invited to submit a poem on behalf of Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss in…
Poems about the James Webb Space Telescope
In Competition No. 3261, you were invited to submit a poem about the James Webb Space Telescope. The first dazzling…
Spectator competition winners: Government ministries you didn’t know existed
In Competition No. 3260, a challenge suggested by a reader, you were invited to reveal the existence of a hitherto…
