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The Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award 2020

Information
Closing date: 
13 December 2019
Entry: 
Open to any novelist or short story writer from around the world who has been published in the UK or Ireland. No entry fee
Prize: 
First Prize £30,000, shortlisted authors get £1,000

Promoting & celebrating the excellence of the modern short story

The Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award is the richest prize for a single short story in the English language, worth £30,000 to the winner. The award, for a story of 6,000 words or less, is open to any novelist or short story writer from around the world who has been published in the UK or Ireland.

The closing date is 6pm on December 13, 2019. The longlist will be announced in May 2020, the shortlist in June 2020, and the winner will be announced on July 2, 2020.

Co-founded in 2010 by Lord Matthew Evans of EFG Private Bank and The Sunday Times's Cathy Galvin, the award is now sponsored in its 10th year by Audible, the spoken word publisher.

The prize prides itself - through the blind reading undertaken by its judges - on discovering and promoting new and emerging writers. This year's winner was the Irish writer Danielle McLaughlin.

Over 1,350 writers entered the award in 2019, with stories coming from 40 different countries and every continent except Antarctica. Entries must be of 6,000 words or less, must be written in English, and must be either unpublished or, for the 2020 award, not published before January 1, 2019. The author must have a track record of published creative writing in the UK or Ireland.

The judges over the past ten years have reflected the power and prestige of the award, and have included Melvyn Bragg, AS Byatt, John Carey, Sarah Churchwell, Carys Davies, Kit de Waal, Anne Enright, Sir Richard Eyre, Sebastian Faulks, Aminatta Forna, Petina Gappah, Tessa Hadley, Mark Haddon, Nick Hornby, Hanif Kureishi, Mark Lawson, Blake Morrison, Neel Mukherjee, Andrew O'Hagan, Will Self, Elif Shafak, Lionel Shriver, Rose Tremain, Joanna Trollope and Sarah Waters.

A feature of the 2020 award will be an Audible audiobook anthology of the shortlisted stories, which has dramatically broadened the audience for the short story, and allow the award's stories to be enjoyed in a brand new way. Shortlisted authors will receive an extra £1,000 fee, on top of a prize payment of £1,000, for being included in the anthology.

More details

 

Closing date: 
13 December 2019
Entry: 
Open to any novelist or short story writer from around the world who has been published in the UK or Ireland. No entry fee
Prize: 
First Prize £30,000, shortlisted authors get £1,000