The editorial team at Short Fiction journal are excited to announce the relaunch of our internationally-renowned Prize, now the Short Fiction/University of Essex Prize. It offers £500 for the winner and £250 for the runner-up, and will be judged by acclaimed author Jon McGregor.

Submissions are open now! The deadline is 31 March 2020, but if you enter in January or February, you’ll benefit from a discounted entry fee of £7 instead of £9. We are also offering 25 free entries for writers for whom the fee would be a barrier to entry – but hurry, as these are offered first-come, first-served.

It’s the start of a new and exciting time for us, as we’re affiliating with the University of Essex LiFTS department – not just through their sponsorship of the Prize, but also to support our publishing excellent short fiction as we head into the new decade. In the coming year we’ll be getting into a position to handle submissions through Submittable, reduce our response times and – best of all – significantly increase our payments to writers.

But, for now, the Prize! All details are on the Competition page of our website, but the headlines are: it’s open internationally, judged blind, with a maximum length of 5,000 words. A shortlist will be announced in May, with the winner and runner-up chosen by Jon McGregor and announced in June.

We can’t wait to start reading your entries – and we’d really appreciate it if you could spread the word about the Prize through your own networks. Thanks!

Ruby, Agri, Liam, Maria, Emma, Naush and Jon