Thank you for all your submissions. We're aiming to get back to everyone in early August.

Would you like to be part of Lancaster Litfest 2012? Through our publishing imprint Flax, we have two exciting opportunities for writers and other creatives to get involved:


Flax Landscapes
As part of Litfest 2012, we’re commissioning three writers to create work informed and inspired by the Lancashire landscape. These are paid commissions for work in any form with a reading length of 15 minutes. The work will be published as an ebook, which will be launched as part of our festival on Sunday 21st October.

Flax is open to submissions from new and established writers who live, work in, or who are from the North West of England.

Please email us a brief proposal that tells us:

• Which particular Lancashire landscape* you would like to write about and why you’re drawn to it.
• What form you would write in (e.g. poetry, short story, creative non-fiction).
• Include a brief bio that lists any previous publications.
• And please send a sample of your writing, 2000 words max, attached as a .doc (not a .docx).
• You must be available to read at the launch event in Lancaster on Sunday 21st October.

All proposals should be sent to Claire Massey at claire.massey@litfest.org
Deadline: 5pm, Friday 6th July

*we're interested in all types of landscape — coastal, rural, urban and suburban — but please stick to places within current Lancashire boundaries. We love Cumbria, Greater Manchester and Merseyside, too, but lots gets written about their landscapes already.


Flax Challenge 2012
As part of Litfest 2012, we’d like to recruit a volunteer curator to run the opening event of the festival. We’re interested in hearing from individuals, artist/writer collaborations or groups who are up for a serious challenge...

The challenge:

• The curator will have a budget of £33 (one pound for every year the festival has run). Remaining materials, expertise and artistic contributions are to be solicited from other creatives, local businesses and the wider community. With arts cuts hitting Litfest and other arts organisations across the country, this is your chance to explore new ways of working and to bring people together in the creation of exciting new work.
• The event should last one hour and will be held on Wednesday 17th October.
• The event will have a theme, which Litfest will announce and present to the curator 48 hours before the event is to take place.

We can offer you:

• A platform to showcase your creativity and resourcefulness in a time of drastic cuts to arts funding.
• A prime spot in a very popular and long-running festival.
• Space to work and the support of the Litfest team.
• Publication in ebook format of any work produced.

Could you do it? This opportunity is open to individuals and groups based in the North West of England. Send us an email letting us know who you are and what your previous experience is, and in one paragraph give us a brief overview of how you might approach the challenge.

All submissions and enquiries should be sent to Claire Massey at claire.massey@litfest.org
Deadline: 5pm, Friday 6th July