Commonwealth Foundation

Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2024

Commonwealth Short Story Prize is an annual award for unpublished short fiction administered and funded by the Commonwealth Foundation.

b. The prize covers the Commonwealth regions of 1. Africa, 2. Asia, 3. Canada and Europe, 4. Caribbean and 5. Pacific.

c. The international judging panel comprises one judge from each of the five regions. Please note that while the entries will be judged regionally, all judges will read and deliberate on entries from all regions.

d. 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 final selection will be judged by an international judging panel; experienced readers will assist the named judges in selecting the longlist.

1. Opening date-1 September 2023
2. Entries must be submitted via the online entry form.
3. Closing date :until 1 November 2023

4. winning writers receive?

   The regional winners receive £2,500 and the overall winner receives a total of £5,000. The winning stories are published online by Granta and in a special print collection by Paper + Ink. The shortlisted stories are published in adda, the online literary magazine of the Commonwealth Foundation.

5. What is the word limit?

   The story must be between 2,000 and 5,000 words.

   • Required theme or genre?

     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.

   • In what languages entries accepted?

     Submissions are accepted in Bengali, Chinese, Creole, English, French, Greek, Malay, Maltese, Portuguese, Samoan, Swahili, Tamil, and Turkish. Stories that have been translated into English from any language are also accepted and the translator of any winning story receives additional prize money.

     • You cannot enter a story you have submitted in previous years.

     • Can the story be published?

       Your submission must be unpublished in any print or online publication, with the exception of personal websites.

     • How is the prize judged?

       Entries are initially assessed by a team of readers and a longlist of 200 entries is put before the international judging panel, comprising a chair and five judges, one from each of the Commonwealth regions – Africa, Asia, Canada and Europe, the Caribbean, and the Pacific. All judges read entries from all regions.

       Entries in other languages are assessed by relevant language readers and the best submissions are selected for translation into English to be considered for inclusion on the longlist.

       The judging panel select a shortlist of around twenty stories, from which five regional winners are chosen, one of which is chosen as the overall winner.

        

      

   Entry rules

   a. Entries, including those in translation, must be made by the original author. b. Entries will only be accepted via the online entry form. c. The deadline for receipt of entries is 1 November 2023 (11.59pm in any time zone).
   d. Only one entry per writer each year may be submitted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize.
   e. The story must be the entrant’s own work.f. The story must be original work and should not have been published anywhere, in full or in
   part, in any language, before 1 May 2024. Published work is taken to mean published in any
   printed, publicly accessible form, e.g. anthology, magazine, newspaper. It is also taken to
   mean published online, except for personal blogs, personal websites and personal Facebook
   pages.
   g. Entries previously submitted to the Commonwealth Short Story Prize are not eligible.
   h. Entries should be submitted in English, with the following exceptions: entries from
   Commonwealth citizens who write in Bengali, Chinese, Creole, French, Greek, Kiswahili,
   Malay, Maltese, Portuguese, Samoan, Tamil and Turkish and who do not have an English
   translation of their story, may submit their stories in the original language. English
   translations of short stories written in other languages are eligible if submitted by the
   writer (not the translator) and provided that the translator is also a citizen of a
   Commonwealth country.
   i. Simultaneous submissions are eligible as long as the entrant informs the organisers (via
   creatives@commonwealthfoundation.com) immediately should the story be accepted
   for publication elsewhere or be selected for a prize.
   j. Entries must be 2,000 words minimum, 5,000 words maximum (not including title).
   k. Entries should be uploaded in a PDF document. Please save your document as a PDF and use
   the title of the story as the file name. Please note that the story must not be saved as
   ‘Commonwealth Story’, ‘Short Story’ or any other generic title. If it is not possible to save
   the entry as a PDF document, it may be uploaded as a Microsoft Word document, with
   the file name in the same format as above. The first page should include the name of the
   story and the number of words.
   l. The author’s details should be included on the entry form. They must not be given
   anywhere on the uploaded document. All entries are judged anonymously.
   m. Where applicable, the translator’s details should be included on the entry form.
   n. Entries in English should be submitted in Arial 12-point font and double line spacing.
   For entries in other languages, the appropriate font should be used. All pages should be
   numbered.
   o. There are no restrictions on setting, genre or theme.
   p. The story should be adult fiction and must not have been written for children alone.q. Entrants agree as a condition of entry that the prize organisers may publicise the fact that a story has been entered or shortlisted for the Prize.
   r. Worldwide copyright of each story remains with the writer. The Commonwealth Foundation will have the unrestricted right to publish the winning stories (the overall winning story and the four regional winning stories) online, in an anthology, or for promotional purposes where appropriate.
   s. The shortlisted writers, the regional winners, and the overall winner will be expected to take part in publicity activities including social media where possible.
   t. The overall and regional winners may be expected to undertake a mutually acceptable programme of regional outreach activities to develop and promote the Commonwealth Foundation.

   Contact details

   For any questions about eligibility or rules, please contact creatives@commonwealthfoundation.com

   5. Prize regions Africa: Botswana, Cameroon, Eswatini, Gabon, The Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia. Overseas Territories: Saint Helena, Tristan Da Cunha, Ascension Island.
   Asia: Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, India, Malaysia, Maldives, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka
   Canada and Europe: Canada, Cyprus, Malta, United Kingdom. Overseas Territories: Gibraltar, Falkland Islands.
   Caribbean: Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago. Overseas
   Territories: Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Montserrat, Turks and Caicos Islands.
   Pacific: Australia, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu. Overseas Territories: Cook Islands, Niue, Pitcairn.