Deadline: Nov. 1, 2019 (11:59 p.m).
Commonwealth Writers today opened its 2018 Commonwealth Short Story Prize submission calls on Sept. 1. It awards the prize to the writer of the best unpublished short fiction written in English by a Commonwealth citizen. It accepts stories written in English, Bengali, Chinese, French, Greek, Kiswahili, Malay, Portuguese, Samoan, Tamil, Turkish, as well as translated entries.
The panel of judges places entries into five regions: Africa, Asia, Canada, and Europe, the Caribbean and the Pacific. Regional winners receive £2,500 and the overall winner receives £5,000. Entrants must be citizens of a Commonwealth country or stateless persons currently residing in a Commonwealth country and must be at least 18 years old.
You don’t have to currently reside in your country of origination. For regional purposes, entries will be judged by country of citizenship. Where the writer has dual citizenship (of two Commonwealth countries), the entry will be judged in the region where the writer is permanently resident. There is no requirement for the writer to have current residence in a Commonwealth country, providing that they are a citizen of a Commonwealth country.
To apply, submit a 2,000–5,000 words short story. Entries can be submitted online. You can only submit one entry per writer. You cannot submit a story that isn’t original or was published. Entries must be unpublished and remain unpublished in any language until 1 May 2020. Published work is taken to mean published in any printed, publicly accessible form, e.g. anthology, magazine, newspaper. It is also taken to mean published online, with the exception of personal blogs and personal websites. You can’t submit any story you previously submitted to the Commonwealth Short Story Prize.
Save your document as a PDF and use the title of the story as the file name. An alternative, you can submit your story in a Microsoft Word document. On the first page, write the name of the story and the number of words. Do not include your personal details in the document. Commonwealth Writers will judge all 2017 Commonwealth Short Story Prize entries anonymously.
Submit your entry in Arial 12 point font and double-space it. Also, number all pages and include a header with the title of the story.
The Commonwealth Short Story Prize is an annual award for unpublished short fiction administered and funded by the Commonwealth Foundation. The prize covers the Commonwealth regions of 1. Africa, 2. Asia, 3. Canada and Europe, 4. Caribbean and 5. Pacific. (See Section 5 for countries in each region).
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 and the remaining four regional winners £2,500. If the winning short story is a translation into English, the translator will receive additional prize money.
For any entry or eligibility queries not covered above, please email writers@commonwealth.int for clarification before submitting an entry.