Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2017 for Unpublished Short Fiction Writers

Submission Deadline: November 1st 2016

The Commonwealth Short Story Prize is an annual award for unpublished short fiction administered and funded by the Commonwealth Foundation. The Commonwealth Short Story Prize is part of Commonwealth Writers the cultural initiative from the Commonwealth Foundation.

The Commonwealth Short Story Prize brings stories from new and emerging voices, often from countries with little or no publishing infrastructure, to the attention of an international audience. You don’t need an agent, just an internet connection to submit your unpublished story of 2000-5000 words. Entry is always free and stories translated into English are also eligible.

Entry Rules:

Entries must be made by the writer.
Entries will only be accepted via the online entry form.
The deadline for receipt of entries is 1 November 2016 (12 noon GMT).
Only one entry per writer may be submitted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize.
The story must be the entrant’s own work.
The story must be original and should not have been published anywhere in full or in part before 1 May 2017. 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.
Entries previously submitted to the Commonwealth Short Story Prize are not eligible.
All entries must be in English.
Translations of short stories written in languages other than English are eligible if submitted by the writer (not the translator) and provided the translator is a citizen of a Commonwealth country. Entries must be 2,000 words minimum, 5,000 words maximum.
Entries should be uploaded in a PDF document. Please save your document as a PDF and use the title of the story as the file name. Please note the story must not be saved as ‘Commonwealth Story’, ‘Short Story’ or any other generic title. If it is not possible to save the entry as a PDF document, it may be uploaded as a Microsoft Word document, with the file name in the same format as above. The first page should include the name of the story and the number of words. The author’s details should be included on the entry form. They must not be given anywhere on the uploaded document. All entries are judged anonymously.

Prizes:

Five winning writers from five different Commonwealth regions share a total prize money of £15,000.
The overall winner receives £5,000, one of the highest amounts for an international short story prize open to unpublished writers.
Regional winners receive £2,500.

Prize regions
Africa:

Botswana, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia. Overseas Territories: St Helena, Tristan Da Cunha, Ascension Island.
Asia:

Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, India, Malaysia, Maldives, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka.
Canada and Europe: Canada, Cyprus, Malta, United Kingdom. Overseas Territories: Gibraltar, Falkland Islands.
Caribbean :

Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago. Overseas Territories: Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Montserrat, Turks and Caicos Islands.
Pacific:

Australia, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu. Overseas Territory: Pitcairn.

Selection Criteria

The international judging panel comprises one judge from each of the five regions – Africa, Asia, Canada and Europe, the Caribbean and the Pacific. Please note that while the entries will be judged regionally, all judges will read and deliberate on entries from all regions. Regional winners receive £2,500 and the overall winner receives £5,000.

Short stories translated into English from other languages are also eligible, and we invite writers from Mozambique who write in Portuguese, and writers who write in Samoan, Swahili and Bengali, and who do not have an English translation of their story, to submit their stories in the original language.

Submit Your Entry Now for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2017

For More Information:

Visit the Official Webpage of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2017

Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2017 for Unpublished Short Fiction Writers

Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2017 for Unpublished Short Fiction Writers from the Commonwealth (£15,000 Prize).