The Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2022

Deadline: 1 November 2021
Open to: any citizen of a Commonwealth country who is aged 18 and over
Benefits: regional winners each receive £2,500 and the opportunity to be published online by Granta magazine, and the overall winner receives £5,000

DESCRIPTION

The Commonwealth Short Story Prize is an annual award for unpublished short fiction administered and funded by the Commonwealth Foundation. It is run by Commonwealth Writers, the cultural programme of the Commonwealth Foundation.

The prize is only open to short fiction, but it can be in any fiction genre–science fiction, speculative fiction, historical fiction, crime, romance, literary fiction–and you may write about any subject you wish.

ELIGIBILITY

Entrants must be citizens of a Commonwealth country or stateless persons currently residing in a Commonwealth country. The Commonwealth Foundation will request verification of citizenship status before winners are selected. Entries from citizens of non-Commonwealth countries are not eligible.
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.
Entrants must be aged 18 years or over on 1 November 2021.
All entries will be accepted at the discretion of the Commonwealth Foundation which will exercise its judgement, in consultation with the prize chair, in ruling on questions of eligibility. The ruling of the chair on questions of eligibility is final, and no further correspondence will be entered into.
Entries from previous overall winners of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize are not eligible. Entries from previous regional winners are eligible.
Entries from current members of staff at the Commonwealth Foundation are not eligible.
Entries must be unpublished and remain unpublished in any language until 1 May 2022
Entry rules can be found here.

BENEFITS

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.
The winning stories will be published online by Granta and in a special print collection by Paper + Ink.
The regional winners will receive one year’s Full Membership to The London Library and the overall winner will receive two year’s Full Membership.