The Short Fiction International Short Story Prize 2024 is now closed.
A huge thank you to everyone who entered!
We're now reading your wonderful work, and will announce a shortlist in late April,
with the final results published in May.
Our judges:
Yan Ge was born in Sichuan, China in 1984. She is a fiction writer in both Chinese and English, and is the author of fourteen books in Chinese, including six novels. She has received numerous awards and was named by People’s Literature magazine as one of twenty future literature masters in China. Her work has been translated into eleven languages, including English, French and German. The latest English translation of her novel, Strange Beasts of China, was one of The New York Times Notable Books of 2021. Yan’s English writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Irish Times, TLS, Granta, The Stinging Fly and elsewhere. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia where she was the recipient of the UEA International Award 2018/19. Her English language debut short story collection Elsewhere was published by Faber in the UK and Scribner in the USA in summer 2023. Yan lives in Norwich with her husband and son.
Wendy Erskine is the author of two short story collections, Sweet Home and Dance Move. She edited an anthology, well I just kind of like it, on art in the home and the home as art. Her non-fiction has appeared in The Guardian, The Quietus and many other publications. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, she has been listed for the Edgehill Prize, the Republic of Consciousness Prize, the Gordon Burn Prize and the Sunday Times Short Story Award. She was awarded the Butler Prize for Literature. She is a full-time secondary school teacher.
Rules of Entry:
1. Dates: The Prize is open for entries from 9am GMT on 15 January 2024. The deadline for receipt of entries is 23:59 GMT on 31 March 2024.
2. Language: All entries must be in English.
3. Geographical restrictions: There are no geographical restrictions on entry: while the Prize is UK-based, all writers – within and outside the UK – are welcome to enter.
4. Length: The maximum length of submissions is 5,000 words, not including the title. There is no minimum length.
5. Genre/theme: There are no restrictions on genre, style, theme, or subject, but entries should be prose fiction – not poetry or memoir.
6. Entry fee: There is an entry fee for each story submitted (though see 7. Free entries, below). To encourage early submissions, the fee for entries submitted in January and February will be £10 – the discounted fee will apply until 29 February 2024 (23:59 GMT). In the final month, March, the entry fee will be £12. Payment is made through the Submittable portal for the Prize. At the time of entry, writers can opt to pay a supplement of £1 to subsidise a free entry for a writer in more difficult financial circumstances.
7. Free entries: Forty (40) free entries are available to writers for whom the fee would be a barrier to entry. Twenty (20) of these are reserved for writers resident in the UK. To request one, please email shortfictionjournal@gmail.com (once the Prize opens) and let us know your country of residence. The free entries are offered on a first-come, first-served basis, and you do not need to give us detailed information about your circumstances, though please let us know your general situation (whether you're on a low income, unwaged, or a student, for example). Free entries will be judged blind, the same as paid entries.
8. Blind judging: Entries will be read and judged anonymously; entrants’ names and contact details should only appear on the entry form and not anywhere on their stories/manuscripts. The stories/manuscripts must be free of all personal or identifying information about the author. This includes age and address.
9. Entry format: Entries should be in a standard 12pt font and double-spaced, unless the form of the story demands otherwise. Entry is online-only, via Submittable.
10. Multiple entries: Writers may enter as many stories as they like; each separate story requires a separate entry fee.
11. Simultaneous submissions: Simultaneous submissions are welcome, but please withdraw your entry via Submittable as soon as possible if the story is accepted for publication elsewhere, in print or online (including self-published, e-book, magazines, journals, audio, websites, blogs, social network sites), or broadcast.
12. Age restriction: Entrants must be 18 years old or over on the closing date.
13. Corrections: No corrections or alterations can be made after receipt of an entry.
14. New work only: Entries must be entirely the work of the entrant and must never have been previously published, in print or online (including self-published, e-book, magazines, journals, audio, websites, blogs, social network sites), or won a prize in another writing competition. Any entry found to have been plagiarised will be disqualified.
15. Judging process: Each entry will be read by at least two members of a diverse panel of experienced short story readers from Short Fiction. A shortlist, announced in late April 2024, will then be forwarded to our judges, Yan Ge and Wendy Erskine, who will select the winner, runner-up and third place story for a final announcement in May 2024. The panel’s and judges’ decisions are final and no individual correspondence will be entered into.
16. Prizes: £1000 will be awarded to the main prize winner; the runner-up will receive £300, and the third place story will win £100.
17. Publication: The winning, runner-up and third place stories will be published online at Short Fiction journal. Acceptance of any prize implies agreement for the relevant story to be published online.
18. Results: Entrants will not be contacted individually about the competition results unless they are selected for the shortlist.
19. Rules acceptance: Entry implies an acceptance of these rules. Entries that fail to comply with the entry rules and requirements may be disqualified.