Competition
Henry James sells Heinz baked beans
In Competition No. 3201, a contest inspired by Salman ‘naughty but nice’ Rushdie, you were invited to submit advertising copy…
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales retold
In Competition No. 3200, you were invited to retell one of Chaucer’s tales in the style of another author. The…
What Boris Johnson’s vacuum cleaner saw
In Competition No. 3199, you were invited to supply a poem in which an inanimate object comments on its owner’s…
Spectator competition winners: Enid Blyton explains economics to children
In Competition No. 3198, you were invited to supply an extract from a children’s book that is designed to explain…
Spectator competition winners: poems on the death of Prince Philip
In Competition No. 3197, you were invited to supply a poem to mark the death of Prince Philip. I wondered…
Replies from Shakespeare’s dark lady and Frances Cornford’s fat woman
In Competition No. 3196, you were invited to supply a reply to the poet from Frances Cornford’s fat woman or…
Spectator competition winners: racy versions of the classics
In Competition No. 3195, you were invited to submit an extract from the racier, mass-market version of a well-known literary…
Spectator competition winners: a kiwi fruit for Emily Dickinson
In Competition No. 3194, a nod to Keats and Tony Harrison, you were invited to write a poem about a…
Spectator competition winners: royal clerihews
In Competition No. 3193 you were invited to submit clerihews (two couplets, AABB, metrically clunky, humorous in tone) on members…
Spectator competition winners: animals get their revenge on humankind
In Competition No. 3192 you were invited to submit a short story that features an animal (or animals) taking revenge…
The bard responds to news that he has been cancelled
In Competition No. 3191 you were invited to submit a Shakespearean soliloquy reflecting on the news that the Bard has…
Spectator competition winners: the novels you will never read
In Competition No. 3190 you were invited to submit the first paragraph of your least favourite type of novel. Sci-fi…
Spectator competition winners: poems about favourite smells
In Competition No. 3189 you were invited to submit a poem about a favourite smell. This challenge certainly seemed to…
Spectator competition winners: the hell of a foreign holiday
In Competition No. 3188, a challenge designed to make us all feel better about the looming prospect of another enforced…
Spectator competition winners: topical sea shanties
In Competition No. 3187 you were asked to provide a sea shanty on a topical theme. This challenge was an…
Spectator competition winners: mischievous acrostics
In Competition No. 3186 you were invited to supply an acrostic poem praising or dispraising a public figure, in which…
Spectator competition winners: ‘England in 2021’ (sonnets after Shelley)
In Competition No. 3185 you were invited to compose a sonnet called ‘England in 2021’. The challenge was inspired by…
Spectator competition winners: jokes in verse form
In Competition No. 3184 you were invited to tell a joke in verse form. This challenge, suggested by a reader…
Spectator competition winners: adverbial short stories
In Competition No. 3183 you were invited to submit a short story entitled ‘My Year of Living [insert adverb of…
Spectator competition winners: Edward Lear and Pam Ayres write dirges
In Competition No. 3182 you were invited to rewrite a famous piece of light verse with a dirge-like, hieratic tone…
Spectator competition winners: publishers rejecting literary classics
In Competition No. 3181 you were invited to submit a letter by a publisher rejecting a well-known literary classic. The…
Belloc-esque cautionary tales for our times
In Competition No. 3180 you were invited to submit a Belloc-esque cautionary tale featuring a high-profile public figure. Cautionary Tales…
Christmas hits rewritten as sonnets
In Competition No. 3179 you were invited to submit a Christmas hit single rewritten as a sonnet. This seasonal challenge…
What the Dickens
In Competition No. 3178 you were invited to submit an extract from a Dickensian novel based around the name of…
What Mr Micawber thinks of Charles Dickens
In Competition No. 3177 you were invited to submit a well-known fictional person’s view of their author. Highlights in a…
