Women's Poetry Competition 2023
Welcome to Mslexia, the only magazine where every reader is a potential contributor too. Almost every part of the magazine is open to submission by any woman writer. Our competition is open to unpublished poems of any length. Your £10 entry fee allows you to submit up to three poems. The judge this year is the outstanding and award-winning writer Pascale Petit.
Prizes
1st: £2,000; 2nd: £500; 3rd: £250 (Each prize goes for one person.)
Unpublished Poetry Prize for the best poem by a previously unknown poet: £250.
The four winners, plus sixteen additional finalists will have their poems published in the May issue of Mslexia.
Results
The deadline for all entries is 23:59 GMT, 6 April, 2023
The winners and finalists will be announced on 1 May, 2023
How to enter
Add the entry fee to your basket and go to the checkout. Once the order is completed, you'll be taken to a Submit page where the entry form is located. Click the "Enter Now" button. You can submit at a later date by typing into your Mslexia online account and going to the "competitions" bill.
Visit our Entry Instructions for a more comprehensive guide on how to enter, and be sure to read our Rules before submitting your entries.
Frequently-asked questions
Have a question about formatting, eligibility (资格), or anything else?
Ready to enter? Please see our Entry Instructions. For any further information, email competitions@mslexia.co.uk or call us at 0191 204 8860.
Sam is autistic (自闭症患者). Thus, dining out can be tricky. Though he loves to eat, he dislikes the loud noise during restaurant dining. So he has a solution: overpower all noise with a much louder noise of his own. Faced with a possibility of dining alone all the time, I decided to work on dining skills at a trendy new spot early one Tuesday night.
To my delight, we arrived at an empty restaurant. So far, so good. Everything went well until two older and elegantly-dressed women entered. They were seated two tables away from us. I felt a sense of upcoming doom.
The women began to chat, paying little notice to us. Sam happily took this as his cue (暗示) to start talking and drown them out. I leaned into Sam and asked for a quiet voice, but unfortunately Sam had left that voice at home.
I glanced at the neighboring table, knowing we wouldn't go unnoticed much longer. I quickly used Plan B: eat quickly and leave. Sam, who normally inhales food, suddenly embraced the concept of leisurely dining and refused to rush — all while chattering away endlessly.
"SHUSH!" I said, a little annoyed. Sam responded by giggling loudly. "Be quiet!"
Now the two women were watching us. The older of the two women leaned over. "Here it comes!" I thought. She completely surprised me when she said, "Honey, stop shushing that boy. He has something important to say. I have friends that talk way more than he does, and they aren't nearly as interesting."
Then she asked Sam, "Now, boy, don't you listen to your mom. You talk as much as you want. I want to hear everything you have to say." Turning to me, she added, "You have a delightful boy. Relax and enjoy your dinner—and don't let him skip the chocolate cake. It's unmissable."
I will always remember those two lovely ladies. Their kindness meant the world to a stressed-out mom. Wherever they are, we're sending them lots of love and hopes for chocolate cake.
Heat waves are becoming more common in parts of the United States — and that means more people running their air conditioners for longer. But those air conditioners can make the problem worse, giving off greenhouse gases as they work that contribute heavily to climate change.
SkyCool Systems is trying to break that cycle, using technology that promises to offer buildings an alternative means to cool down in a similar way to how the planet cools itself. "Our planet naturally cools itself by sending heat out in the form of infrared light (红外线) or radiation," said Eli Goldstein, SkyCool's cofounder and CEO. "We do this through rooftop panels, which look like solar panels but actually do the opposite, reflecting 97% of the sunlight that hits them and cooling the surface below," said Goldstein.
SkyCool's model involves fixing a network of pipes below those panels. These pipes are filled with water, which is kept cool by the panels and then flows into an air conditioning system. This process is designed to take pressure off the system's cooling mechanism. And because the panels cool naturally and don't need external power to function, it helps the entire system use less electricity.
A Grocery Outlet store in California, which has been using SkyCool's system since last year, says it saw a marked drop in its electrical bills. Jesus Valenzuela, the store manager, estimates that the panels have saved his store roughly $3,000 a month.
But perhaps the biggest barrier to making the technology ubiquitous (无处不在的) is its relatively high cost. Increasing production could help bring the cost down, Goldstein said, particularly for developing countries in Asia and Africa where SkyCool hopes to eventually expand. For now, the company is focused on commercial applications of the technology, though it hopes to start setting up panels on the roofs of individual homes. "We're just excited to be able to use this new technology for good," Goldstein said.
When ancient Egyptians put pen to paper—or, more accurately, ink to papyrus (纸莎草纸) —they took steps to ensure that their words would last forever, a new study suggests. Researchers from the University of Copenhagen have found that ancient scribes (抄写员) likely added lead to their inks to help their writing dry. More than 1,000 years later, reports Cosmos magazine, 15th-century European artists employed lead as well. According to the London National Gallery, lead-based pigments (颜料) found in many Old Master paintings are "known to aid the drying of paint films."
According to a statement from the University of Copenhagen, the study's authors analyzed 12 papyrus pieces dating back to between 100 and 200 C.E., when Egypt was under Roman control. The team used X-ray microscopy to determine the raw materials used in different inks, as well as the chemical structure of the dried ink attached to the ancient paper. Ancient Egyptians began writing with ink—made by burning wood or oil and mixing the resulting material with water—around 3200 B.C.E. Typically, scribes used black, carbon-based ink for the body of text and reserved red ink for headings and other key words in the text. Though black and red inks were most common, shades of blue, green, white and yellow also appeared in ancient texts.
The researchers write that the Egyptians created red inks with iron-based combinations—most likely natural earth pigments. The team also identified the presence of lead. They were bowled over that there was no lead white or other combinations that would typically be present in a lead-based pigment. Instead, the ancient ink's lead pigments appeared to wrap around the papyrus cell walls and iron particles (微粒). The resulting effect looked "as if the letters were outlined" in lead. This find indicates that the ancient Egyptians invented a system of adding lead to red and black inks specifically for the purpose of sticking the words to paper.
The 12 analyzed papyrus pieces are part of the University of Copenhagen's Papyrus Carlsberg Collection. The documents originated in Tebtunis, the only large-scale institutional library known to have survived from ancient Egyptian times.
It's common to feel hungry and take a snack throughout the day. But if you find yourself always feeling hungry and reaching for a snack, you might ask yourself: Am I really hungry, or am I bored?
What type of hunger?
There are different types of hunger: Physical hunger and psychological (心理的) hunger. If you are feeling physical effects of hunger, like a rumbling (辘辘声的) stomach or a headache, your body is in need of food to keep going. But if you "think" you're hungry, it might be psychological hunger.
Hunger is a normal sense that makes you want to eat. Your body tells your brain that your stomach is empty. Avoid going long periods without eating or eating very large meals.
Am I hungry?
One tip to avoid filling your psychological hunger is to wait 20 to 30 minutes after you first "feel" hungry. If you have some illness that requires blood sugar levels, then you'll want to follow your doctor's suggestions.
Plan ahead
Have an idea to fill the time and avoid boredom, like taking a walk, reading a book or completing a task. Keeping a food diary for a week can be a powerful tool for you to become more aware of your eating habits and possible causes for emotional eating. Often, being thirsty and dehydration (脱水) can be misunderstood as hunger. Next time you want a snack, try drinking a glass of water first!
A. You are struggling with being fat.
B. You can take measures in advance for it.
C. Moreover, you can try drinking a glass of water.
D. Hunger usually makes some people feel unhappy.
E. If, after that time, you are still hungry, it's time to eat.
F. In fact, if it is done properly, there's nothing wrong with it.
G. Instead, take a moment to consider the type of hunger before eating.
Eileen Taylor had something sweet on her mind in the drive-through (汽车餐厅) line at Heav'nly Donuts. But it wasn't a doughnut (甜甜圈) .
Just the day before, a stranger ahead of her in line had1 paid for her coffee. "It made such a big difference in my day," says Eileen. She had recently2 her job as a physician's assistant, and money was tight. But Eileen was3 to pick up the $6 bill of the person in the car 4 hers. What she didn't know was that her5 would go around, and in a chain reaction, other6 would be inspired to pay backward too. In half an hour, 8 drivers paid for the7 of the person behind them in line. The doughnut shop's employees had8 this before. In fact, this Heav'nly Donuts was known as a special 9 — the manager Wendy Clement says her customers are the "best in the world". But, even so, the workers were amazed when a 15th car 10 to the window and the driver paid for the next customer. By the time the lines for the drive-through and at the counter were 11 , the shop had more than12 its previous record. Later that day, Eileen went back to pick up a coffee. Wendy told her what had happened. "Everyone was all13 ," says Eileen.
Now—working again as a physician's assistant, Eileen14 Heav'nly Donuts every Saturday morning, having a 15 —and paying for the order of the customer behind her.
Videos of 77-year-old Xu Xiuzhen, who speaks 11 different languages with foreigners while working at a scenic spot selling water, postcards and headdress flowers, have brought her instant fame. Xu's village, (locate) at the base of Moon Hill, is popular scenic spot famed for a moon-shaped hole at the summit.
(support) her family, Xu, who dropped out of junior school in the third grade, began to learn different languages in order to attract more foreign customers. She has been working a guide and vendor (小贩) in a county and resort town in Yangshuo since 1998, the area became famous with foreign backpackers and organized tours. Over the past two decades, Xu (teach) herself 11 foreign languages, including English, Spanish, Japanese, German, Hebrew and Korean, In addition to making her (extreme) popular, her linguistic prowess (超凡技术) has made easier for her to communicate with foreign tourists. As a result, Xu has also become one of the (busy) tour guides in Yangshuo. Her reputation draws a large crowd of tourists every day, especially foreign (visit), who come to meet the multilingual guide out of admiration.
