‘How people die remains in the memory of those who live on.’
Dame Cicely Saunders (founder of the modern hospice movement)
In the words of others...
‘Bereavement is a darkness impenetrable to the imagination of the unbereaved.’
Iris Murdoch (British Novelist and Philosopher, 1919-1999)
What's on
There are hundreds of events relating to death, dying and bereavement happening countrywide. View them here, or publicise your own.
Final Chapters writing competition
Talking and reading about other people’s childhoods, sadness, happiness and aspirations can help us to cope with our own ups and downs, but shared experience is seldom there to support us when our life is nearing its end or when people 
close to us are dying.
This is why the Dying Matters Coalition is running a new creative writing competition about dying, death and bereavement. Anyone touched by dying, whether directly or as a relative, friend, colleague or carer, can enter.
The judges will be looking for original writing in which the author’s feelings and thoughts about the end of life have been crafted into a succinct piece of work that attracts the reader’s attention and retains their interest.
Prizes
1st: £200; 2nd: £100; 3rd: £50; plus highly commended certificates. All entries will also be considered for publication online or in print form.
The winners will be announced during Dying Matters Awareness Week, 14-20 May 2012.
The project could lead to the publication of a selective anthology and the formation of an archive, and we expect it to generate
considerable public interest.
Poster
Final Chapters poster - please download and display anywhere you feel appropriate (at writing groups etc).
Entering the Final Chapters Writing Competition
- Entry is free of charge
- The competition closes at midnight GMT on 31 March 2012. Prize winners will be contacted within five weeks of the closing date
- Entries should be a maximum of 2,500 words of prose or 40 lines of poetry
- Up to three entries can be submitted
- All entries must be submitted in English
- Entries should ideally be emailed to us; we also accept postal entries.
To enter by email: in the body of the email give your full name, address, telephone number if you have one and title(s) of your entries. Attach each entry as a WORD (.doc) document. Put the Title of your entry on every page. Do not show the author's name or any other identifying marks on submitted work. Please number the pages.
Send email plus attachment(s) to finalchapterswriting@gmail.com. Emailed entries will be acknowledged by email. No other correspondence will be entered into.
To enter by post: there is no special entry form; write or type each entry on single-sided A4 white paper; put the title of your entry on every page and number your pages. Do not show the author's name or any other identifying marks on submitted work. Please don’t use staples. Please add a covering note with your full Name, Address, Email address and Telephone number if you have them, and the Title(s) of your entries.
Postal entries should be sent to: Final Chapters Writing Competition, Dying Matters Coalition, The Fitzpatrick Building, 188-194 York Way, London N7 9AS. We are not able to return copies of entries and will only be able to acknowledge email entries.
Please read full Competition terms and conditions.
