Deadline: March 31, 2025
Entry fee: £9
About the competition
The International Bath Short Story Award, is currently organised by Jude Higgins, Jane Riekemann and Alison Woodhouse. who are in 2025, joined by new team members, Tracy Fells and Karen Jones. Launched in 2012 the BSSA has rapidly become established as one of the prominent short story competitions the UK receiving nearly 1000 world-wide entries each year and producing a yearly anthology of short-listed and winning authors.
Jude Higgins is a writer, events organiser and writing tutor. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University (2012) and writes very short (flash) fiction. In addition to co-running the Bath Short Story Award, she directs Flash Fiction Festivals UK, a yearly festival devoted to flash fiction. She is also founding organiser of the Bath Flash Fiction Award which runs a rolling competition with three rounds a year and a yearly award for a novella-in-flash. Jude is a director of the Award winning short-short fiction publisher Ad Hoc Fiction
Jude’s flash fictions have been published widely and she has won or been listed in many competitions for short-short fiction. Her chapbook of flash fiction The Chemist’s House, was published by V Press in 2017 and you can buy it from her website or on Amazon kindle. Her new flash fiction collection, Clearly Defined Clouds was published in July 2024.
Competition guideline
- Stories can be on any theme or subject but must be original and written in English. They must also be for adult or young adult readers. Non-fiction and fiction written for children under 13 years is not eligible.Entrants must be 16 years or over.
- Maximum length is 2,200 words.No minimum word count. Entries should be typed, double or 1.5 spaced, in a plain legible font (Pt 12). Each page should be numbered but not include any no personal details about the author. Send stories in email attachments as a docx, (not Word doc ) pdf, odt, or rtf file. Not in Pages, please. The file name must be the title of your story. (If your story is untitled, the file name must be the first five words of the story).
- Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but please let us know by the beginning of July if your story is accepted elsewhere. Thank you
- Closing date for receipt is March 31st 2025 at midnight, BST. Online entries only (details on the entry page) The Award is open to everyone (locally/nationally or internationally). There is no limit to the number of entries but there is a fee of £9 for each story submitted. Stories entries must be paid for via PayPal on the entry page.
- Entries must not have been previously published in print or online, been broadcast or won a prize. Published online includes publication on your personal blog.
