Fresher

The Publishing House for New Voices

WELCOME TO FRESHER PUBLISHING

Fresher is a young publishing press, established at Bournemouth University to nurture the publishing talent of the future and encourage new writers everywhere. It is also central to the university’s MA in Creative Writing and Publishing.

The Fresher Writing Prize is an annual competition open to all previously unpublished, emerging writers of fiction, poetry and creative non-fiction. Judges each year include a literary agent, an author and other senior figures from the publishing industry, who offer a one-to-one or feedback on winners’ work as part of their prize. We also run the Writing Wizardry Prize for children of 11 years and under.

View the Poetry & Short Story shortlists now

Please do keep in touch here, or via Facebook/Twitter/Instagram, for details of the Prize, our publications and other special writing-related events.

Please note, we do not currently accept any other work for publication. Unfortunately, as we are a very small publishing house, we are unable to offer any work experience placements.

Best wishes – Emma
Find out more

Fresher Poetry Winner Reflection: Lindy Newns

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Since winning the Fresher Writing Prize for poetry in 2018, Lindy Newns has had one of her poems published in the Grenfell anthology, and was invited to read her work on a Manchester radio show. With another successful year of the Fresher Writing Prize behind us, we wanted to take the opportunity to reflect back on Lindy’s winning poem and… View Post

Winner of the 2019 Fresher Writing Prize for the Best Short Story

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We are delighted to announce that Family Matters, by Martina Nesi, has been awarded the prize for the Best Short Story 2019. Fresher Publishing judge, Ansa Khan Khattak, Editor at Picador said: “I loved the ambition of this story – our narrator sees spirits –and how it worked so well with the very human aspect of family relations. The author made… View Post

Winner of the 2019 Fresher Writing Prize for Poetry

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We are delighted to announce that the winner of the Fresher Writing Prize for Poetry 2019 is Isobel Shirlaw, for her poem Gift Of Remembrance. Isobel studied English at Oxford University and has worked for the Daily Telegraph, the British Government in Bangladesh and for Refuge, a UK domestic violence charity and lives in Berkshire. Poetry judge, Antony Dunn said: ‘A Gift of… View Post

Specially Commended for the 2019 Fresher Writing Prize for Poetry

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We don’t officially have a runner-up category, but our judge, poet Antony Dunn, was keen to also commend a poem called Excavation by Elenia Graf. There’s something horribly familiar about the sentiments behind ‘excavation’ which rings true. It dismantles the pretty, the safe, the familiar, to get to some mysterious horror underneath. It doesn’t over-explain, the mystery is not resolved – and… View Post

Writing Wizardry Winners collect their prizes!

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Zoe Kilmister, The Writing Wizardry year 3/4 category winner, and Alex Kirk, the year 5/6 category winner, recently had a fabulous time selecting their choice of £150 worth of books from Waterstones, with a helping hand from staff at the store and Emma Scattergood, Editorial Director of Fresher Publishing and the Writing Wizardry Competition. Both children walked away happily with… View Post

Volume 5 Cover Reveal

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We are excited to reveal the winning cover for the latest volume of the Fresher Writing Anthology! The cover for volume 5 was designed by Tara Proudfoot, a student from the MA Creative Writing & Publishing course at Bournemouth University. Whilst there were several strong contenders for the cover design this year, we felt that Tara’s choice of colour and… View Post