With five weeks to go until our entry deadline we’d like to take the opportunity (thank you, mighty ShortStops) to say that the 2015 Bristol Short Story Prize is open for entries, and we really, really do mean open.

We’ve published a huge range of stories in our first 7 anthologies – stories set throughout history from ancient Greece to the present day, and beyond to imagined futures. There have been stories narrated by octogenarians, by children not yet a decade old, and others with narrators and protagonists at all stages of life in between. Stories written in the first, second and third persons, with the broadest sweep of styles and genres from the familiar to the obscure : historical, romance, literary, science fiction, harsh realism, surreal flights of fancy, tense thrillers, comic capers, ‘experimental’ tales, sparsely written hammer blows of what some might call flash fiction, and lots more. There have been high, mid and low brow stories; stories written as blog posts, album reviews, in verse, as diaries, as a series of emails, as well as a sumptuous crop of the more traditional; stories of 4,000 words and those with just a few hundred, one of which won first prize in 2010.

We invite you to show us what’s possible in a short story, what a short story can be, what a story can do and what ‘short story’ means to you. Drop our jaws, make us weep, make us rethink, tickle us, entertain us, confound us, provoke us, comfort us, stimulate us, storify us to another time or place but above all we want to encourage and inspire you to feel free to write what you want in whatever form you want.

We won’t be compiling lists of ‘shoulds’ & ‘shouldn’ts’ on how or what to write – another contribution to the vast muddle won’t help anyone, there’s more than enough out there. You’re the writer, it’s up to you what you do, it’s your story. We’ll read every submission with the same objectivity, respect and relish.

In short, then, there are no dos & don’ts, shoulds & shouldn’ts, rights & wrongs – no borders, no barriers, nothing is out of bounds.

Full details and rules are available at www.bristolprize.co.uk

Closing date for entries is 30th April 2015

Prizes:
1st £1000 plus £150 Waterstone’s gift card (usable online)
2nd £700 plus £100 Waterstone’s gift card
3rd £400 plus £100 Waterstone’s gift card
17 further prizes of £100 will be presented to the writers whose stories appear on the shortlist. All 20 shortlisted writers will have their stories published in the Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology Volume 8.

Our amazing judging panel:
Sara Davies (writer, former BBC Radio 4 producer) Rowan Lawton (literary agent at Furniss Lawton), Sanjida O’Connell (writer and TV presenter) and Nikesh Shukla (author, performer and journalist)

If you do take the plunge then the very best of luck!