Rainy City Stories wants your love. They also want your love stories and poems. In honour of Valentine’s Day, they’re offering a wonderful prize for the best Rainy City Love Story received in the next month. 

Whether you're an old romantic or a cynic, you’re invited to tell us your tales (real or imagined) of falling in, out, or over love in our city. But don’t restrict yourselves to traditional romances; interpret “love story” in its widest sense. The winning submission could be about a more abstract kind of love. It could even be an anti-love poem, or a rant against all things loved-up

The winning piece of writing will be published on the Rainy City Stories website on the eve of Valentine’s Day amid a shower of cupids and lace bows and twinkly-eyed kittens. And the winner will receive a big fat £50 Borders gift voucher (the kind of thing that really makes us writer-types swoon), kindly donated by our friends at the Manchester Literature Festival. 

Here’s the lowdown: Entries must be submitted by close of business on Tuesday, February 10. Please submit short stories or poems through the mechanism on  http://www.rainycitystories.com/ and put the words “love contest entrant” at the top of the story. Entrants should only submit their own original work, and writing that has not previously been published. Also, by entering the competition you grant RCS the right to publish the piece online.

Rainy City Stories employs the latest open-source technology to publish new writing set in the city of Manchester. It uses a Google map of the city to organise stories linked to particular places.

Rainy City Stories is funded by Arts Council England.

Contact: Kate Feld, editor