We’ve never really fathomed why it is that so many people want to encourage children to walk to school for when we were children it was walking home that was so much more fun. More often than not we were expected to walk home without being accompanied by an adult and this meant that the route we took was something that we chose and often went past the sweet shop.   

“Walking Home” is the title of a book by UK Poet Laureate Simon Armitage in which he performed poetry in return for lodgings on a route following the Pennine Way.

Walk listen create’s writer-in-residence Claudia Zeiske took the theme of walking home for a much longer walk (some 90 days), starting out from Huntly in Aberdeenshire in northeast Scotland, she walked to her childhood home near Munich in south Germany.

‘Walking home’ also conjures up memories of student life: missing the last bus home and having to walk along darkened streets and daring oneself to walk through churchyards or fields with grazing livestock, to get back to one’s ‘digs’

What does ‘walking home’ conjure up for you? And whatever it does conjure, can you write about it in 250 words or under? 

Claudia and fellow Poet-in-residence Lydia Kennaway have chosen walking home as the theme for our latest writing competition which we are excited to launch this week.

Claudia and Lydia were the winners of our inaugural writing competition that we launched in the summer which was on the theme of walking and listening. Similar to that competition, whoever wins our current competition on the theme of ‘walking home’ will also become a writer-in-residence at walk listen create

Other prizes include Silver membership of walk listen create and artwork prints by Alban Low, who will illustrate a limited edition chapbook anthology of competition shortlisted pieces that we will publish in April.

So how do you get involved? It’s really simple just register on the walk listen create site, pay an entry fee of €6 euros for one submission and €9 euros for two, and then write your poem or story, remembering to keep it to fewer than 250 words and submit it as a PDF. If you find yourself in a position where the entry fee is is a barrier for you taking part then just drop us a line as we will be happy to waive the fee.

The fees are used to support walk listen create’s Sound Walk September as well as contributing to the cost of an illustrated chapbook anthology that includes the shortlisted poems and stories from the competition. Previous shortlisted author, E E Rhodes is running a Writing Words of Wonder creative writing workshop on 14 January 2022, specifically addressing the competition theme of Walking Home.

We’ve recruited four judges two for poetry and two for prose, who volunteered to judge all the submissions. They are Lydia Kennaway. our Poet-in-residence and editor, author and publisher, Anita Roy; with Kerri Andrews and Simon Piasecki judging the prose submissions.

The deadline for submissions is midnight UTC on Monday, the 31 January and by the 1st April we will be publishing the illustrated chap book anthology. Further details about the competition can be found here

We are looking forward to discovering how others interpret the theme of walking home .