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The Costa Short Story Award

Information
Closing date: 
7 September 2012
Entry: 
Writers aged 18 or over living in the UK or Ireland
Prize: 
Prizes: £3,500 for the winner, £750 for two runners-up

Costa is launching a short story award, to be run in association with the Costa Book Awards but judged independently of the main five-category system.

The Costa Short Story Award is for a single, previously unpublished short story of up to 4,000 words by an author aged 18 or over and written in English and living in the UK or Ireland.

Entry runs to 4pm on Friday 7 September. Submissions must be online via a dedicated page of the website. Entrants need not have been previously published but publishers and agents may submit entries on behalf of authors. All entries will be judged anonymously, without the identity of the author being available to the judges.

A panel of five judges - Richard Beard, Director of the National Academy of WritingMajor new initiative to establish a national academy in the UK. More than 100 established writer patrons support its aims and will be visiting the Academy to help deliver the programme. Applicants for the one year vocational course will have to submit a portfolio of writing. www.writingacademy.org; Fanny Blake, novelist and journalist and Books Editor of Woman & Home; Victoria Hislop, novelist; Gary Kemp, actor, songwriter. guitarist and writer; and Simon Trewin, agent at William Morris Endeavor - will select a shortlist of six entries to be announced in November. The public will then be invited to vote online for their favourite story. The winner will be announced at the Costa Book Awards ceremony on 29 January 2013, and will receive £3,500; two runners-up will each receive £750.

"What's really exciting about our new Short Story Award is that it's open to absolutely everyone," commented Kevin Hydes, Marketing Director, Costa UK. "For the first time, we're able to extend the reach of the Book Awards in ways we never have before. You don't need a publisher or an agent to enter this competition, just an idea and writing talent and we're encouraging anyone who has ever considered writing creatively, and those who write already, professionally or otherwise, to enter."

 Full details

Closing date: 
7 September 2012
Entry: 
Writers aged 18 or over living in the UK or Ireland
Prize: 
Prizes: £3,500 for the winner, £750 for two runners-up