BBC National Short Story Award returns for 2013

After a year spanning the globe for the finest international talent, the BBC National Short Story Award returns for 2013 to celebrate the best in homegrown short fiction

Submissions for the Award, now in its eighth year, are open from today. Mariella Frostrup will chair the judging panel for the Award, one of the most prestigious for a single short story, with the winning author receiving £15,000. The runner-up receives £3,000 and three further shortlisted authors £500 each.

We are now accepting entries for the 2013 prize

The Award is now open for submissions from publishers, agents and published authors from the UK. The closing date for entries is 11 March 2013 at 10am.

Read the terms and conditions and entry guidelines carefully and submit your story in a Word document, along with a completed entry form. The maximum length for the short story is 8,000 words.

Download the BBC National Short Story Award 2013 entry form

Download the BBC National Short Story Award 2013 terms and conditions/entry guidelines

Judging panel

The judges are:

• Mariella Frostrup, journalist, television presenter and arts critic
• Novelist and short story writer, Mohsin Hamid
• Arvon tutor, novelist and short story writer, Peter Hobbs
• Deborah Moggach, screenwriter, novelist and short story writer
• Editor of Readings, BBC Radio, Di Speirs
  
  

The shortlist will be announced on Friday 20 September with each of the five stories broadcast on BBC Radio 4 the following week. The winner will be announced on Tuesday 8 October. As in previous years, the five stories will also be published in a special anthology and be available for free audio download.

The BBC National Short Story Award, managed in partnership with Booktrust, continues to serve as a reminder of the power of the short story and to celebrate a literary form that is proving ever more versatile in the twenty first century. The genre is enjoyed not just on the page, on air and increasingly on every sort of screen, but also in flash fiction events, short story festivals and slams. The short story has moved beyond the revival of recent years and is now experiencing a golden age. BBC Radio 4 is the world's leading broadcaster of short stories and a staunch and long-time supporter of the form. Short stories are broadcast every week attracting over a million listeners.