My poem, ‘Epitaph‘, won a fantasy poem contest – organised by the wonderful L. M. Stull, on behalf of the very talented author M.R. Mathias - being held to raise money for the charity SmileTrain.

I had two excellent reasons for entering this contest: the first was the charity aspect itself.  SmileTrain does one thing, but it does it well – its mission is focused on solving a single problem: cleft lip and palate.  It does this by providing free cleft surgery for millions of poor children in developing countries as well as providing free cleft-related training for doctors and medical professionals.

I think that their copy says it all: ‘changing the world one smile at a time’.

The second reason was a little more biased of me: the contest had to be a fantasy poem, based around dragons. 

They had me at hello

M.R. Mathias donated money himself to the charity but, on top of that, he is going to be publishing all the submission to the contest with 100% of the proceeds from that to be donated as well.

When the anthology is published I would urge you all to buy a copy because, by doing so, you will be helping a child to smile!