Deadline: November 30, 2013
Applications are now open for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. This is an annual award for unpublished short fiction administered and funded by the Commonwealth Foundation. Awarded for the best piece of unpublished short fiction (2000 – 5000 words) in English. Regional winners receive £2,500 and the overall winner receives £5,000. The Prize, which aims to identify talented writers who will go on to inspire their local communities covers the Commonwealth regions of 1. Africa, 2. Asia, 3. Canada and Europe, 4. Caribbean and 5. Pacific.
The Commonwealth Short Story Prize is part of Commonwealth Writers the cultural initiative from the Commonwealth Foundation. Commonwealth Writers develops the craft of individual writers and builds communities of emerging voices which can influence the decision-making processes affecting their lives.
Prizes
There will be five winners, one from each region. One regional winner will be selected as the overall winner.
- The overall winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize will receive £5,000
- The remaining four regional winners will receive £2,500 each
- If the winning short story is a translation into English, the translator will receive additional prize money: £2,000 for the overall winning story and £1,000 for a regional winning story.
Eligibility
- Entrants must be citizens of a Commonwealth country. The Commonwealth Foundation will request verification of citizenship before winners are selected. Writers from non-Commonwealth countries (including the Republic of Ireland and Zimbabwe) are not eligible.
- For regional purposes, entries will be judged by country of citizenship. Where the writer has dual citizenship, the entry will be judged in the region where the writer is permanently resident.
- Entrants must be aged 18 years or over.
- There is no requirement for the writer to have current residence in a Commonwealth country, providing she/he is a citizen of a Commonwealth country.
- All entries will be accepted at the discretion of the Commonwealth Foundation which will exercise its judgement, in consultation with the prize chair as necessary, in ruling on questions of eligibility. The ruling of the chair on questions of eligibility is final, and no further correspondence will be entered into.
- Submissions must be made by the author of the short story.
- Short stories translated into English from other languages are also eligible.
For more information, click here.
