Happy New Year, welcome back to LeafSalon, and let's ease ourselves into 2004 with news of a not-too-looming deadline: there’s a month left to go before the closing date of the inaugural Hankins Award for Creative Writing.

Evasion will be running this competition every three months, and for the first theme, judges Malcolm Burgess and James McGoram are looking for ‘a 200 word polemic on the nature of competition’.

Entries close on 31 January 2004, and the winner and the runner up will receive a bottle of fine wine and a free one-year membership to the Evasion Society. Their winning entry will also published on the Evasion website and in the annual 'best of' publication.

Entries should be made online: go here.