The Future Places Environmental Essay and Poetry Prize

Our winning essayists and poets were celebrated at a special event at Kendal Mountain Literature Festival on Saturday 20^th November. Introduced by Eden Project ECO Tim Smit on film from Cornwall, we were delighted to announce the following winners:

• First prize poetry - Jane Burn for ‘Love Affair with Next Door’s Birch’
• Second prize - JR Carpenter for ‘what I’m after. Is a language’
• Highly commended – George Richards for ‘Boy Surfacing’ and Rose Proudfoot for ‘Trails’
• First prize essay - Nicola Carter for ‘Fragments on the Mountain Edge’
• Second prize - Leonie Charlton for ‘Recovering Ground’
• Highly commended - Anna Fleming for ‘Dinorwig: Play and Resistance in a Post-Capitalist Landscape.’

It was a great pleasure to meet our finalists in person and to begin conversations that we have no doubt will continue into the future.

Our first prize winners will both be published on Caught by the River and in the forthcoming Saraband anthology North Country: Landscape and Wildlife from the North of England in 2022.

Thanks indeed to all our entrants and we look forward to developing the project in the future! Thanks are due to all our sponsors, Eden Project, Iceland, Future Places Centre, Digital Economies and Saraband publishers and to prize partners Kendal Mountain Literature Festival.

You can view the Digital Anthology

You can read our judges’ comments in full

Essay Prize Update

Huge congratulations to our final three essayists. In no particular order these are:

• Leonie Charlton, for Recovering Ground,
• Nicola Carter for Fragments in the Mountain Edge
• Anna Fleming for Dinorwig: Play and Resistance in a Post-Capitalist Landscape.

Well done to all our finalists!

Poetry Prize Update

Huge congratulations to our poetry finalists! In no particular order:

• JR Carpenter 'What I'm After. Is a Language,'
• Jane Burn 'Love Affair with Next Door's Birch,'
• George Richards 'Boy Surfacing,'
• Rose Proudfoot 'Trails.'

We are delighted to announce the poetry shortlisted for the Future Places Poetry Prize. Results just in from our judge John Wedgewood Clarke;

The shortlisted Poets are:

• Jonathan Skinner
• Rose Proudfoot
• Jane Burn
• Victoria MacKenzie
• George Richards
• Julian Brasington
• Anna Orridge
• JR Carpenter
• Tony Hendry

We are pleased to announce that we have fourteen shortlisted essay writers in the inaugural Future Places Prize Environmental Essay Prize.

The shortlisted writers are:

• Ian Carter
• Gregory Leadbetter
• Laurence Rose
• Patrick Laurie
• Anne Taylor
• Ruth Bradshaw
• Nicola Carter
• Saskia McCracken
• Iona Macduff
• Ian Wyatt
• Leonie Charlton
• Anna Fleming
• Noa Leach
• Jane Smith

Welcome to this new UK wide prize for environmental literature. The Future Places Environmental Essay and Poetry Prize is a partnership between Lancaster University Future Places Centre, Eden North, Iceland, Kendal Mountain Literature Festival and Saraband publishers.

The winning entries will be published alongside an accompanying feature on Caught by the River, and in the Saraband nature anthology North Country, in 2022.

Judges;

• Essays - Jenn Ashworth Lancaster (Professor of Creative Writing, Lancaster University)
• Poetry - John Wedgewood Clarke (Senior lecturer, Creative Writing, University of Exeter)
• Chair of Judges - Tim Smit, Eden Centre and Eden North

We are living in a time of urgent environmental challenge; ecosystems are under stress and many species are in decline, but perhaps more than ever before we are also aware of the human capacity for restoration in the natural world. The Future Places Prize therefore calls for essays and poems that illustrate how literature can be a revelatory and imaginative force for helping us to see the natural world – and our place in it - differently. This is much less nature and nature writing as a vehicle for personal recovery, and much more about the essay and poetry as restorative acts in the field of literature. The winning essays and poems will show literary flair as a vehicle for communicating that both environmental and human change is not only possible, but happening, even now in the heart of the Anthropocene.

‘We are really excited to be supporting new Nature writing The times we live in have created a heightened awareness of our dependence on the natural world and all the interdependencies in between. In our view this creates a magnificent stage on which to amplify special talents to work their magic on audiences both new and old. This prize is intended to encourage the sentiment that Nature writing can reach a wide audience if given the attention and support it deserves.’ Sir Tim Smit KBE, Co-founder of the Eden Project, Executive Vice Chair of Eden Project Ltd and Executive Chairman of Eden Project International Ltd

‘This innovative prize – and the partnership behind it - suggests that nature writing itself has begun to evolve away from ‘nature’ simply as the background for human recovery, into a set of more nuanced explorations of the natural world. The FPC prize proposes that there are innovative ways of communicating our human relationships with the natural world, where literature is a highly potent force for communicating the idea that regeneration – in all its widest interpretations – is entirely possible.’ Karen Lloyd, Writer in Residence with Lancaster University's Future Places Centre.

‘I am delighted to be working with Future Places, Eden North and the Kendal Mountain Literature Festival on this new prize. The time for imaginative, daring and boldly original writing that attends to the natural world has never been more urgent. I am looking forward to reading essays that surprise, provoke and challenge and I'm particularly interested in reading entries from writers whose voices are under-represented in nature writing and our wider literary ecosystem.’ Jenn Ashworth, Professor of Writing in the Department of English and Creative Writing at Lancaster University

‘Poems can’t really compete with each other, as the rules by which poems play their serious games are so various, it would be like comparing the steeple chase with the 100metres. But this does not invalidate a competition like this. We can’t have enough opportunities to encourage poetry to think and feel its way through the climate and ecological crisis we’re all facing. And, as a judge, I’ll be looking out for poems that play according to the rules they set themselves, whatever they may be, to perfection. While I’m open-minded and very much looking forward to being surprised, I’d like to see work that recognises our species as being intermeshed with the ecosystems we depend upon for life. Wonder can go hand in hand with technical data, personal experiences with global earth systems. Poems are a form of linguistic ecosystem, full of connections, transpirations, and all manner of complex differences held in a living dialogue. I’m looking forward to reading poems that have a spark of life about them.’ John Wedgwood Clarke, Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing, University of Exeter

The prize is open to UK residents only, aged 18 and over.

Essays can include but are not limited to experimental and innovative examples of the form, to a maximum of 6,000 words.

Poems can include but are not limited to experimental and innovative examples of the genre, of up to 40 lines, (excluding title,) and single spaced.

Prizes

• Winning essay £1500
• Second place winner £300
• Winning poetry £800
• Second place winner £200

Essay submissions cost £7. Poetry submissions cost £6.00 for up to four poems.

Rules of the Competition

Entries are limited to one essay or four poems per person.

Submission payments are made through Saraband.

Once payment has been made you will receive a confirmation email and order number, (tracking number). You can then make your written submission as a Word document or PDF via the prize email address fpcenvironmentalwritingprize@lancaster.ac.uk

Please put ‘Environmental Writing Prize’ as the subject of the email and include your name, your tracking number from the confirmation email, your home address and contact telephone number in the body of the email.

The first page of your submission document must only include your name, home address, email address, phone number and the order/tracking number from your submission payment. NB Failure to include your tracking number will nullify your entry.

Begin your essay or poems on the next page, with each poem starting on a new page.

No adjustments can be made after submitting so please ensure you have followed all instructions.

Please make sure you read and follow the guidelines in the prize descriptor.

The prize is open to UK residents only.

All entries must be in the English language.

Work must be previously unpublished in any format, in print or online.

All judging will be anonymous.

Closed

The new closing date for the Future Places Environmental Essay and Poetry Prize has been extended to midnight, Thursday 30th September.

Winners and one second place in each category will be notified by Sunday 7^th November.