Sixth Element Publishing

25/03/2026

It was the Crossing the Tees Short Story award ceremony/anthology launch last night. It was great to be there to see the winners collect their prizes and meet some of the writers. Well done to everyone who was published! Thanks to everyone at the festival for inviting us to look after the competition and… we'll see you next year! 🙂

We had an amazing night at Middlesbrough Libraries celebrating the winners of our short story competition and launching the ninth short story anthology.
Huge congratulations to first prize winner Julie Kirk, second prize winner Martin Feekins, and third prize winner Linny Johnstone - pictured here with judges Trevor Wood Author, Natalie Scott, J. A. Baker and host Rachel Teate.
Thanks to Sixth Element Publishing for managing the competition and publishing the anthology.
More photos of the evening by our official photographer Scott Bonner to follow.

22/05/2025

It's time for your entries for the Crossing the Tees Short Story Competition 2025... we're getting ready to read them all and we're sure it'll be the usual difficult job of shortlisting them. The closing date for entries is 12 midnight on Thursday 31st July 2025. Find out how to enter here…

Welcome to the Crossing the Tees Short Story Competition 2025. Budding authors and creative writers – share your stories with us for a chance to appear in a published anthology and take home a…

06/03/2025

Crossing the Tees are delighted to announce Amy Lord as our writer in residence for this year's festival.

Amy Lord is a novelist and short story writer from Middlesbrough. She is the author of award-winning dystopian novel, The Disappeared, which imagines an alternate Britain where banned books become weapons of the resistance.

She also writes short fiction inspired by the changing post-industrial landscapes of North East England, using elements of magic or the uncanny to bring an unexpected dimension to the story. She was a recent finalist in the Mslexia Short Story Competition and the Dinesh Allirajah Prize for Short Fiction. Her stories have appeared in various magazines and anthologies.

During this year’s Crossing the Tees Festival, Amy will lead a series of writing workshops in libraries across all five local authorities, designed to inspire writers and generate new story ideas, as well as help writers to learn new story writing techniques and develop their self-editing skills.

Amy will also be offering 1-1 mentoring sessions for writers attending the festival workshops, when she will provide feedback and support on their work and help them to prepare an entry for this year’s Crossing the Tees short story competition. Mentoring sessions will be available on a first come, first served basis.

More details about Amy's workshops will be announced in April.

Darlington Libraries Middlesbrough Libraries Redcar & Cleveland Libraries Stockton-on-Tees Libraries Hartlepool Community Hubs DRAKE - The Bookshop Sixth Element Publishing

28/06/2024

Good advice… but things could go wrong.

30/05/2024

Looking forward to the Writers' Day at Crossing the Tees on Saturday 8th June!

Last time I ran a whole day of writer workshops, a few people said to me that beforehand they were a bit unsure of committing to a whole day... afterwards they said it had been great, well worth the time and that they were glad they'd decided to come.

We cover a lot, including:
- Goal setting and priorities
- The basics of plot structure, character development, point of view and tense
- How to publish your own book incuding a run through the publishing process and then a practical guide to KDP and other options
- Setting up distribution channels
- Marketing and selling your book

It's informal and friendly, and we tend to tailor what we're talking about to be relevant to everyone attending.

Hope to see you soon.
Happy writing,
CGH xx

https://www.crossingthetees.org/whats_on/writer-day-an-introduction-to-novel-writing-and-publishing/


Crossing the Tees

Always wanted to write and publish your own novel? Join Gillie Hatton of Sixth Element Publishing for a full day of friendly and informal sessions giving an introduction to the basics of novel writ…

02/08/2023

We're holding a Writer Day at this year's WRITE Festival at The Word in South Shields, on Saturday 2nd September, 10.15am-4.30pm.

Tickets are £10 for the whole day and sessions will include the basics of novel writing, how to publish your book, setting up distribution channels, and marketing and selling your book.

Ideal if you want to find out more, all in one day!

The Word, National Centre for the Written Word is South Tyneside’s new state-of-the-art cultural venue, situated in the heart of South Shields and is brimming with exciting new experiences, activities and facilities for people of all ages to enjoy.

31/07/2023

Last day to get in your stories for Crossing the Tees! The deadline is midnight tonight (BST). Happy writing xx

The closing date for the Short Story Competition 2023 is midnight on Monday 31st July. Budding authors and creative writers – share your stories with us for a chance to appear in a published anthol…

28/07/2023

Only a few more days to enter the Crossing the Tees short story competition!

Free to enter, over 16s only, up to 3k words, any theme or genre. Deadline midnight Monday 31st July 2023. Shortlisted stories to be published in next year's anthology. Cash prizes for 1st, 2nd, 3rd.

Happy writing xx

The closing date for the Short Story Competition 2023 is midnight on Monday 31st July. Budding authors and creative writers – share your stories with us for a chance to appear in a published anthol…

23/07/2023

Hi everyone, if you've sent in an entry for the Crossing The Tees Short Story Competition and you're waiting for a confirmation, we're busy sorting out the admin for stories received so far and will be sending out the first batch of official confirmations in the next day or so.

In the meantime, if you're worried we don't have your entry, please email [email protected] and I'll check we have your email.

The deadline for the competition is midnight 31st July 2023 so just about a week to go!

Happy writing xx

Crossing the Tees

27/06/2023

Another book, written and published in a week...? Why not! This time inspired by Teesside's TechNExt Festival and a super key note speech on Emerging Technologies by Kate Baucherel, our call out for tiny stories was very much a 'Go Wild With The What IFs'. What if... AIs become sentient? What if....

23/06/2023

Hi everyone,
We're doing another BOOK IN A WEEK as part of this week's Teesside TechNExt Festival Fringe! We've had a load of fab flash fiction submitted already :) There's one hour to the deadline but it is a wobbly deadline so pls give me a shout if you intend to send a story in later this weekend xx

Following Kate Baucherel's fab keynote speech on Emerging Technologies at Teesside Uni this afternoon, we're putting together a Flash!Mob eBook of 300 word flash fiction pieces of near future science fiction.

If you'd like to submit a piece, the brief is: Go Wild With The What Ifs. Look at current day emerging tech and come up with some wild and wonderful 300 word stories on what could go wrong, what could go right, what could be just around the corner...

Some T&Cs:
Only original work please (no ChatGPT/AI - we're keeping all IP human for this one).
300 words or thereabouts (it's a wobbly word limit).
To be published on Kindle and elsewhere as a 99p/free book as and when possible.
No payment or royalties – any proceeds to be used to develop writing in the Tees area.
All rights remain with the authors.
In submitting a story, you give us permission to publish it in any format we want and accept that we may make any edits we want (no time to check back with authors unless absolutely necessary), and confirm that this is your original work and hasn't appeared anywhere else.

Deadline (wobbly): Friday 23rd June 2023 noon

Some emerging tech for inspiration:
Virtual Reality
Metaverse
Autonomous cars
Brain-computer interfaces
Augmented Reality
Nanotechnology
Teleportation
Biotechnology
Sentient AI
Some what ifs for inspiration:
Biohacking leads to immortality
The Internet disappears
Robots outnumber people
We run out of copper
The sun doesn’t come up
We colonise Mars
Aliens land in the car park
Cryptocurrency takes over
Radioactivity stops working
Chatbot becomes sentient
Govt surveillance is in everyone’s home
Nanobots are used for brain surgery
Social media updates become mandatory
Brain-computer interfaces are hacked
Prisons are replaced by virtual reality
GM crops lead to an unlimited food supply
The metaverse won’t let people out
3D-printed babies can be made to order
A teleporter device is invented
Cloud ships caused global freezing

It's flash fiction so keep it short and snappy and have fun.
Give me a shout if you have any questions 🙂
cheers and happy writing,
Gillie
xx