Deadline: 9AM GMT March 13, 2023
About the competition
The BBC National Short Story Award is one of the most prestigious for a single short story, with the winning author receiving £15,000, and four further shortlisted authors £600 each. The stories are broadcast on Radio 4 and available to listen to on BBC Sounds, and also published in an anthology by Comma Press. The 2022 winner of the BBC National Short Story Award was Saba Sams for ‘Blue 4Eva’, a story about sexual identity, agency, power and class, taken from her debut collection, Send Nudes. Previous alumni of the award include Zadie Smith, Hilary Mantel, Jon McGregor, Ingrid Persaud, Cynan Jones, Sarah Hall, Lucy Caldwell and Jo Lloyd.
Competition guidelines
Read the Entry Terms and Conditions on pages 3–8 thoroughly to check the author whose work is due to be submitted and their short story are eligible for the Award. Submission of an entry is taken as acceptance of all the Terms and Conditions.
2. Format the short story as per the following instructions:
- One entry per author
- Written in English
- A maximum of 8,000 words
- Typed
- Font: any font, 12pt, black
- Double spaced
- No page numbers
- Include a front page which details the Title of Story and the Word Count
- No author’s name included anywhere on the story (unless you are submitting a typeset file and it is unavoidable).
3. Save the short story as an Adobe PDF with the Title of Story in the file name. (N.B. if the short story has already been published you can submit a typeset PDF file, but you must remove the author name or title from any headers or footers). If your story has been typed into Microsoft Word you can save as a PDF by clicking File -> Save As, and then selecting .PDF from the dropdown menu underneath the file name field.
4. Complete the Entry Form online at https://www.bbc.co.uk/send/u129813830 including uploading your short story document.
5. Read the whole guideline here and enter the competition.
Please note: Entries submitted successfully online will receive an automated acknowledgment on-screen; entrants will not receive an automated email message.
