The competition is being run by the University of Southampton and is led by Denise Baden, Professor in Sustainable Business. Assisting are Carole Burns, Head of Creative Writing and Dr Aiysha Jahan, a published writer with a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Southampton. Our mission is to create a cultural body of work that entertains and informs about green solutions, inspires green behaviour and raises awareness of the necessary transformations towards a sustainable economy.
Contact Us
The quickest way to contact us is via email: greenstories@soton.ac.uk
We recommend giving us a follow/like on our social media to stay up to date. We often share sustainability-related news, events and resources to help you with inspiration for your stories.
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Sponsors
Southampton Business School sponsored our very first short story competition in 2018.
British Academy of Management, Sustainable and Responsible Business special interest group sponsored prizes for our Radio Play competition in 2019.
UN Principles of Responsible Management Education (UK Chapter) sponsored our interactive fiction prize in 2019.
Orzo Coffee sponsored prizes for our children’s novel competition in 2020.
The Literary Consultancy and its team of world-class professional readers work with writers writing in English at all levels, across all genres. It runs a popular 12-month mentoring programme, Chapter and Verse, which supports writers to completion of a book project. As well as a suite of creative and practical events, and a yearly writing retreat, Literary Adventures. TLC is sponsoring our radio play/series competition (Aug 2021) with a prize of free script appraisal for the winner.
Daniel Goldsmith Literary Consultancy is sponsoring our adult novel competition (Dec 2021) with a prize of half-price manuscript appraisals for the winners.
Orna Ross, the novelist and poet who set up the Alliance of Independent Authors was kind enough to sponsor the Orna Ross Green Stories novel prize.
“I’m delighted to sponsor this worthy competition and its mission of creating a body of cultural work that showcases stories of green solutions, and presents positive visions of what a sustainable society might look like. We hope the Prize will encourage novelists and aspiring novelist to address their storytelling talents to new planetary possibilities. Such visions are now urgently needed, to balance endless tales of climate catastrophe, and to reach beyond the eco-community and influence new hearts and minds through the transformative power of fiction.”
The University of Southampton sponsored our clean vs green short story competition and tied the competition into into research about how stories affect our behaviour. The results of a survey of 90 readers after reading six chosen stories showed that they found the stories entertaining and a survey one month afterwards found that reading the stories led to significant behaviour change with respondents reporting that they washed (laundry and showering) in lower temperatures, and used less product and less harsh cleaning agent. This is great news for health, bills and the environment.
The Literary Studio is an established editorial consultancy offering the UK’s widest range of pre-publication services across the English-language world. The Studio’s services include Manuscript Assessment, Developmental Editing, Copy editing and Agent Submission Reviews. Winners have discounted manuscript appraisals from the Literary Studio.
Judges
In addition to our professional judges Aiysha Jahan, Tal Shaller and Carole Burns, we would like to extend special thanks to those judges who gave their time for free to help us with our green stories competitions. These include:
Brian Adams is a Professor of Environmental Science and author of three award winning novels: Love in the Time of Climate Change, KABOOM!, and Offline. He also is Owner/Manager Phippenadams Solar – Empowering Non-Profits through Solar. We are so grateful to Brian – he has been one of our most consistent judges, helping us to judge numerous writing competitions, and contributing his own short story Suck it Up to our anthology No More Fairy Tales: Stories to Save Our Planet.
E.A. Smiroldo is a nuclear engineer with a BS in Engineering from the University of Maryland, an MBA from Mount Saint Mary’s University, and MA in International Security Studies from Trinity Washington University. She’s also a Washington Area Music Association Award-nominated singer-songwriter and has won prizes in writing competitions sponsored by the Bethesda Literary Festival and the International Screenwriters’ Dig. After placing in the latter, she optioned the treatment for her screenplay with X-ray Media. Her debut novel, a climate change thriller called The Silent Count, is out now on Solstice Publishing.
James McKay is an illustrator and writer, who has published 3 graphic novels: ‘Dreams of a Low Carbon Future’, ‘A Dream of a Low Carbon Future’ and ‘The Art of a Sustainable Future’. His artwork featured in the book ‘Unlocking Sustainable Cities’ by Paul Chatterton and his work was profiled in Rob Hopkins’ book ‘From What Is to What If’. His climate change-related artwork was recently featured on the cover of Nature magazine. James helped us judge the short story, novel and screenplay formats.
Lui Sit writes short adult fiction, memoir, non-fiction and children’s middle grade. She has been a recipient of the, A Brief Pause, London Writers Award & WriteNow development schemes. Her short stories are published online and in print journals and anthologies including MAINSTREAM, Superlative, Short Good Things, City of Stories, Fudoki & Out of The Box. Lui has helped to judge our short story competitions.
Cassandre Pouget is a freelance script & book reader and production secretary working in high-end scripted drama. As a script analyst, Cassandra has written detailed reports for Tiger Aspect, Euston Films, Shore Scripts and the BAFTA x Rocliffe screenwriting competition. Cassandra was particularly helpful in us whittle down the numerous entries for our QuiBi (Quick Bites) competition and adult novel competition.
Patty Papageorgiou is a writer, script reader and editor with previous work shortlisted at the London Screenwriters Festival competitions and ScreenCraft. Patty is currently Script Editor on a feature in development with funding from Film Wales and Development Producer in the early stages of a Crime Drama series to be pitched at Netflix. Patty has helped us judge the screenplay and QuiBi formats.
James McKay is an illustrator and writer, who has published 3 graphic novels: ‘Dreams of a Low Carbon Future’, ‘A Dream of a Low Carbon Future’ and ‘The Art of a Sustainable Future’. His artwork featured in the book ‘Unlocking Sustainable Cities’ by Paul Chatterton and his work was profiled in Rob Hopkins’ book ‘From What Is to What If’. His climate change-related artwork was recently featured on the cover of Nature magazine. James helped us judge the novel and screenplay formats.
Freya Morris is an award-winning writer and her collection ‘This is (not about) David Bowie’ received a special mention in the Saboteur Awards for Best Short Story Collection in 2019. She’s been published in numerous publications in the UK and internationally, and shortlisted for a variety of awards. Freya helped to judge the QuiBi and Flash Fiction formats.
Corey Brotherson is an award-winning writer, editor and creative consultant who has worked in the video games industry since 2001 as a journalist, critic and content producer for over a dozen companies. He guest teaches writing to students, the line editor for award-winning children’s book publisher Butterfly Books, and has scribed over two dozen pieces of fiction, from a TV screenplay adaptation to a fully published comic book series. Corey helped to judge the QuiBi and Interactive Fiction competitions.
Dr Eric Shiu from the University of Birmingham is a researcher and educator of innovation including green innovation and was helpful in helping us to judge the interactive fiction format.
Dr Amir Keshtiban is a senior lecturer/researcher at Newcastle Business School specialising in responsible leadership and sustainability and helped to judge the TV/Netflix competition.
Deborah Tomkins is a prize-winning short story writer and set up the Bristol Climate Writers Network in 2017. Deborah has helped to judge the original short story competition, two novel competitions and screenplay competitions.
Anneliese Schultz is a Bread Loaf Scholar and Pushcart Prize nominee with an MFA in Creative Writing and numerous short story awards and publications, Anneliese was shortlisted for the 2016 HarperCollins/UBC Prize for Best New Fiction. She has won the “Enizagam” Literary Award in Fiction, the “Stone Canoe” Prize for Fiction, and the ALSCW Fiction Award. Her latest stories appear in “Solstice” and in the UK anthology “Teens of Tomorrow”. Anneliese lives in a crazily creative German-Punjabi household in Vancouver, BC, working on YA climate fiction, Middle Grade stories, and adult literary fiction.
Rebecca Neal is an experienced freelance reader, having read for Lionsgate, Kudos, Big Light productions, World Productions, the British Comedy Guide and Signature Entertainment. Rebecca helped us to judge the Radio Play (2021) competition.
Special thanks also to Angeli Shiu (age 10) and Charlie Black who read the eight finalists for the children’s stories and shared their opinions with us. We welcomed having a younger perspective.
Habitat Press
Habitat Press is an imprint and was set up by D.A. Baden to support books that emerge from the Green Stories Writing Competitions
The aim of the Green Stories project is to create a cultural body of work that entertains and informs about green solutions, inspires green behaviour and raises awareness of the necessary transformations towards a sustainable economy. Currently, most green communications preach to the converted i.e. only those who already care to choose to watch climate change documentaries or read books with a green theme. Thus a particular aim is to use fiction as a way to reach a wider audience.
You can find out more about Habitat Press’ strategy and published eco-fiction work on their website.
