Send us your light-filled stories!
This is the final category in the 2024 WestWord Prize. The competition has been revamped for 2025. Get all the info on that here.
Deadline: 30th November 2024 (EXTENDED UNTIL 15TH DECEMBER 2024)
Max word count: 2500
Entry fee: £12 submission only / £40 with feedback
Online anthology publication: February 2025
Prizes:
First prize: £400
Second prize: £250
Third prize: £100
Shortlisted: £25
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or have won any other competitions (longlisted and shortlisted in other competitions is fine if the story remains unpublished).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.