Costa Launches Short Story Award
Costa has today (Monday 16 July 2012) launched the Costa Short Story Award. The competition is open to published or unpublished writers aged 18 or over who have been resident in the UK or Ireland for the past three years. The unpublished story must be maximum 4,000 words and will be judged anonymously (ie without the identity of the author being known to the judges).
Costa Book Awards: Short Story
This is open to residents of at least three years in Great Britain and Ireland.
This is from their web site:
Welcome to the Costa Short Story Award!
This award is for a single, previously unpublished short story of up to 4,000 words by an author of 18 years or over. The story must be written in English.
Only one entry per author will be accepted. Entry is online by this website only.
Entry opens at 9am on Monday 16 July 2012 and closes at 4pm on Friday 7 September 2012.
The author need not have been previously published. Publishers/agents may submit entries on behalf of authors.
All entries will be judged anonymously (ie without the name of the author available to the judges).
A shortlist of six entries will be announced in November and the public will be asked to vote for their favourite.
The winner will be announced at the Costa Book Awards ceremony in late January 2013 and will receive a cheque for £3,500. Two runners-up will each receive £750.
Very generous prize, and the annonymity of the competition should give encouragement to non-professional writers. So for those of you who fill the residency clause in the contest guidelines, good luck if you should tackle this one!