New Millennium writing awards:

Four prizes of $1,000 each and publication in the 2007 issue of New Millennium Writings and on the journal’s Web site are given for a poem, a short story, a short short story, and a work of creative nonfiction that have not appeared in a publication with a circulation above 5,000. Prizes are given twice yearly, in the spring and the fall. Submit three poems of no more than five pages total or up to 6,000 words of prose (or 1,000 words for a short short story) with a $17 entry fee by June 17.

See contest page for guidelines. (Blurb from P&W contest calendar)

Hidden River arts awards:

An annual prize of $1,000 and publication in The Hidden River Anthology, published by Hidden River Arts, a nonprofit literary arts organization in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania will be given in the following categories: (1) to the best unpublished short story or novel excerpt (2) the best unproduced full-length play.

Guidelines:
The William Van Wert Memorial Fiction Award
Eligible: Any previously unpublished short story or novel excerpt of 25 pages or less.
The Hidden River Arts Playwrighting Award
Eligible: Any previously unpublished and unproduced full-length play.

Submissions should be postmarked no later than June 20, 2007.

See contest page for guidelines.

“That was a magical moment,” director Matthew Warchus told reporters on Thursday when presenting to the press the 50-strong cast of what is being billed as the most expensive musical ever staged in London.

“I visited his grave in Oxford to apologize and get his seal of approval. I apologized in case he didn’t like the idea of a stage show,” the British director said.

Link to the rest of the Yahoo! news article.

Interesting and well-written article about writer Simon Gray’s struggle with writing a play about Charles Dickens:

Simon Gray thought writing a play about Charles Dickens would be a breeze. Only now, after wrestling with it for years, can he bring himself to recall the full agony of its creation …

I can’t write when I’m afraid to write. When I force myself I become self-conscious, which is worse than not writing, as it makes me feel ashamed, and bogus. On the other hand, not writing makes me feel stolen from - but by whom or what? Time, perhaps. I decided to give up on the play for a while, get stuck into something else.

Stuck into what? My sense of failure with Dickens lapped into whatever I was writing, as if I were doomed to keep on repeating the experience, though in increasingly minor keys as my projects became increasingly less ambitious: attempts to convert my old stage plays into television films, for instance. Or my old television films into stage plays.

Link to the Guardian Unlimited article