WestWord Prize
2024 Prize
For 2024, we have separated the categories into individual prizes. The shortlisted and winning stories of each will be published in three separate anthology editions and all of the writers included in them will win cash prizes.
The anthology of winning and shortlisted stories from the 2023 prize will now be published in January 2024. There has been a slight delay due to personal circumstances.
YOU CAN ENTER AS MANY STORIES AS YOU LIKE IN EACH CATEGORY BUT EACH STORY MUST BE SUBMITTED AND PAID FOR SEPARATELY.
Micro Fiction Prize
Deadline: 31st March 2024
Max word count: 200
Entry fee: £6 submission only / £20 with feedback
Online anthology publication: June 2024
PRIZES:
1st: £100
2nd: £50
3rd: £25
Shortlisted: £10
Theme: Rain
Judge: Tania Hershman
Tania is a queer poet, prose writer, teacher and editor based in Manchester, UK. The author of nine books: her second poetry collection, Still Life With Octopus, was published by Nine Arches Press in July 2022, and her debut novel, Go On – a fictional memoir-in-collage partly inspired by being writer-in-residence in Manchester’s Southern Cemetery – by Broken Sleep Books in November 2022. Find out more about Tania here. And you can read our interview with her here.
FLASH FICTION PRIZE
Deadline: 31st July 2024
Max word count: 1000
Entry fee: £9 submission only / £30 with feedback
Online anthology publication: September 2024
PRIZES:
1st: £200
2nd: £100
3rd: £50
Shortlisted: £15
Theme: Dream
Judge: Amy Barnes
Amy is the Co-Editor at Gone Lawn, an Associate Editor at Fractured Lit and was a reader at Retreat West for several years. She is also the author of three collections: Mother Figures (ELJ Editions, 2021), Ambrotypes (Word West LLC, 2022), and Child Craft, (Belle Point Press, 2023). Her writing has been nominated for Best of the Net, the Pushcart Prize, Best Microfiction, longlisted for the Wigleaf Top 50 in 2021 and 2022, and included in The Best Small Fictions 2022. Read our interview with Amy here.
SHORT STORY PRIZE
Deadline: 30th November 2024
Max word count: 2500
Entry fee: £12 submission only / £40 with feedback
Online anthology publication: January 2025
PRIZES:
1st: £250
2nd: £150
3rd: £75
Shortlisted: £20
Theme: Light
Judge: Nod Ghosh
Nod Ghosh is the author of The Two-Tailed Snake, which publishing with Fairlight Books in September 2023. Nod was born in Birmingham, UK, and currently lives in Christchurch, New Zealand, where she works as a medical laboratory scientist specialising in the diagnosis of cancers. Her short stories and flash fiction have been widely published in journals and anthologies, and her work has been listed for awards including the Bath Novella-in-Flash Award and the New Zealand National Flash Fiction Day competition. She has had four previous novellas published: The Crazed Wind (2018), Filthy Sucre (2020), Toy Train (2021) and Throw a Seven (2023).
PRIZE ENTRY RULES
Submit stories written in English through Submittable using the button above by 23.59 GMT on the deadline date (sorry late entries will not be included). Please use a clear font of at least size 12 so that we can read it easily!
Please use the name of your story as your Submission title and the document you upload.
Do not include your name on the story document or submission title but provide a short bio as requested in the submission form. All stories are read anonymously so any showing the author’s name will be disqualified.
Please include the word count at the start or end of the story document.
Stories must be your own original work and not have been published online or in print, or have won any other competitions (longlisted and shortlisted in other competitions is fine if the story remains unpublished).
Simultaneous submissions are allowed but if your story wins a prize or is published prior to the winner’s announcement your entry will become ineligible. No refunds of entry fees will be paid.
By entering the competition you agree to your story being published in the winners’ online anthology.
Stories can be in any genre apart from children’s fiction.
You can enter as many times as you like but all entries must be made separately and the entry fee paid each time.
The judge’s decision is final.
Cash prize payments will be made through PayPal or via BACS.
There are no alternative prizes.