Deadline: May 31, 2023
Entry fee: £14
About the competition
Gail Honeyman was shortlisted in our competition and went on to write Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, winning the Costa debut novel award. Our winning and highly commended UK based writers are entered into the BBC short story competition. That’s not all, literary agent A.M. Heath reads all the shortlist and considers representation. Long story short? You are 5,000 words away from success.
Competition guidelines
- The Prize is open to writers of any nationality writing in English aged 16 and over at the time of the closing date (the novel award has different criteria. See the novel page for details).
- Entries must be entirely your own work. Any evidence to the contrary will result in immediate disqualification.
- Entries must not have been published, self-published, published on any website, blog or online forum, broadcast, have won or been placed (2nd, 3rd, runner up etc) in any other competition.
- If your entry has been long-listed or shortlisted in other competitions, and provided it has not won a prize or been published, it is eligible.
- Simultaneous submissions are allowed but will become ineligible should they win a prize elsewhere, be published or scheduled for future publication prior to the date of prize giving. Entry fees will not be refunded.
- You must inform us immediately should your entry be published or win a prize elsewhere.
- Entries submitted posthumously are not eligible.
- Read the whole guideline and submit your entry here.