WIN PRIZES

To win approximately £40 or $80 worth of novels and non-fiction books, enter BEST CHAPTER HEADING competition.

To win approximately £40 or $80 worth of theatre books, enter BEST STAGE DIRECTION competition.

Send your entries for both competitions to missycompetition@googlemail.com

BEST CHAPTER HEADING might be e.g.

CHAPTER THE FIRST. TREATS OF THE PLACE WHERE OLIVER TWIST WAS BORN, AND OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES ATTENDING HIS BIRTH (Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens)

or

CHAPTER TWELVE. AT THE SIGN OF THE PRANCING PONY (Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkein)

It's just the chapter title or heading which you love most because it's the funniest or most tantalising or most thrilling or most evocative title that you know. The content of the chapter is irrelevant, all we're concerned with is the quality of the title or heading. You can have two entries. Feel free to give reasons for your choice or not as the case may be. The chapter heading must be from a published fictional work, of any length, written originally in the English language - translations into English are not eligible. To help us validate the existence of your chapter title, tell us the author, the book and the chapter number and anything else that might help. For instance, in the examples above - the Oliver Twist chapter is from BOOK THE FIRST and At the Sign of the Prancing Pony is from The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One. The closing date for the competition is July 31st, 2008. The winner will be chosen by an independent panel of judges and announced August 7th, 2008.

BEST STAGE DIRECTION might be e.g.

Enter Lavinia, her hands cut off, and her tongue cut out, and ravished. (William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus. Act Two, Scene Three.)

or

He moves center stage and gathers an armload of corn husks then crosses back to the sofa. He stands holding the corn husks over DODGE and looking down at him he gently spreads the corn husks over the whole length of DODGE's body. He stands back and looks at DODGE. Pulls out bottle, takes another drink, returns bottle to his hip pocket. He gathers more husks and completes the procedure until the floor is clean of corn husks and DODGE is completely covered in them except for his head. (Sam Shepard, Buried Child. Toward the end of Act One)

It's the stage direction which gives you most pleasure because it's the zaniest, funniest, most poetic, most eloquent, most imaginative, most wonderful stage direction you know. You can have two entries. You can give reasons for your choice or not. It must be from a play which has been published and which was originally written in English - translations are not eligible. To help us check the reality of the stage direction tell us the name of the play, the playwright, the publisher of the play and year of publication, and anything else that might help us locate it, such as the act or scene number. The closing date for the competition is July 31st, 2008.The winner will be chosen by an independent panel of judges and announced August 7th 2008.

The decision of the judges will be final.

The winner of BEST CHAPTER HEADING will receive three Vintage paperbacks of your choice (to a maximum value of £30). You can choose from Vintage Orginals, Vintage Classics, Vintage American Classics. Vintage publish Hemingway and Iris Murdoch and all things in between - hundreds of great titles by authors like Freud, Thomas Pynchon, Ian McEwan, Haruki Murakami, Charles Dickens, Richard Yates, Italo Calvino, Jane Austen, Janusz Korczak, Graham Greene, Tolstoy, Toni Morrison and Yukio Mishima. In addition the winner will receive a signed copy of Chris Hannan's Missy.

To view the Vintage list, click here.

The winner of BEST STAGE DIRECTION will receive three books from the current Nick Hern Books Catalogue (to a maximum value of £30). Choose from hundreds of plays and theatre books like Gambon: A Life in Acting by Mel Gussow, Peter Brook's Evoking (and forgetting!) Shakespeare, Timothy West's Moment Towards the End of The Play, Theatre Writings by critic Kenneth Tynan, plays by Conor McPherson, Caryl Churchill, Chekhov, Eugene O'Neill, Tony Kushner, Lope de Vega, Iain F. MacLeod, Antony Sher's Year of the King, Declan Donnellan's The Actor and the Target, Harriet Walter's Other People's Shoes, Stephen Unwin's So You Want To Be A Theatre Director?, books on Laban, movement, stage management and dance. In addition the winner will receive a signed copy of Chris Hannan's Missy.

To browse Nick Hern Books click here.

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