The Sunday Times is debuting an annual £25,000 short story competition to be called The Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award.
The contest is open to previously published UK and Irish authors. Deadline for submissions of a 7,000-word (maximum) manuscript is 30 November 2009 (the winner will be announced at “a special event at the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival in March 2010”). In addition to the “largest prize for an individual short story in the world,” there will also be five £500 runner up prizes.
There is no mention of any specifically preferred or prohibited genres, but the list of judges may give some idea as to where they’re leaning:
author and interviewer Lynn Barber
author and essayist Nick Hornby
Booker Prize winner A.S. Byatt
Whitbread Award winner Hanif Kureishi
EFG Private Bank Chairman Lord Matthew Evans
Sunday Times Literary Editor Andrew Holgate
For more information on the award, including precise entry details, see this page.
The award is “an annual competition administered by Booktrust, the independent charity dedicated to encouraging people of all ages and cultures to engage with books and the written word, and is promoted by Times Newspapers Limited.”