Special Collections Blog: Special Collections Blog

Create for Us: Submissions open for the Second Edition of our Fonds Anthology

We are delighted to invite submissions for the second edition of the Fonds anthology!

In the 2023-24 academic year DMU Special Collections partnered with MA Creative Writing students to co-create an anthology of creative work inspired by the materials in our archive. Fonds included 19 submissions in Prose, Poetry and Word & Image categories, with an Editors' Choice winner in each category. Submissions were inspired by a wide range of pieces in the archive, including the artworks of Tracy Kelly and Andrew Logan, newspaper reports about airships and film stars, books about birds and botany, scientific equipment and Victorian photographs.

Hindenberg Found Text, entry for Fonds 'Word and Image' category by Jess Wood

2024-25 Fonds Competition details:

• Open to all students, staff and alumni of DMU
• Deadline: Friday 4th April 2025
• Submit a piece of creative work from 3 categories:
  • Prose (max 500 words) including short fiction, flash fiction, creative non-fiction, drabbles
  • Poetry and Script (poems to be max 40 lines not including the title; scripts to be max 4 pages)
  • Word and Image (max 1 A5 page) including collage, visual poetry and zine pages
• The submission must be inspired by an item from DMU Special Collections
• Please include an artist's statement explaining which archive piece you were inspired by
• An award will be offered for the best submission in each category

To find out more about accessing DMU Special Collections and what’s in the archive collections please see our website: Welcome - Special Collections. We are based in KL 00.21 on the Lower ground Floor of the Kimberlin Library, and are open 10.00-17.00 Tuesday to Friday. If you cannot visit Special Collections then you are welcome to use our online resources as inspiration, for example our online exhibitions, articles and social media.

The anthology will be launched in June 2025. Creatives who are selected for the anthology will receive one free printed copy of the book.

Submit entries and questions to DMUSCSubmissions@Outlook.com