Good news for the Irish short story with the announcement of a new category in the Bord Gais Energy Irish Book Awards: the Writing.ie Short Story of the Year Award. (Maybe my emails to them last year paid off, though I got no reply?) It's a limited response to a much needed category but at least it's something.
This new category is open to short stories of up to 7000 words published between 1stNov 2012 and 31st October 2013 in any of the following contexts: a collection of short stories by a single author; an anthology of short stories; or an established journal or magazine, digital or print, that has been in existence for at least six months within the period of eligibility.
Stories must be original fiction, i.e. neither a reprint nor adaptation of a previously-published work, and all stories must have been or will be published in English or Irish during the qualifying period. Stories published in Irish must be supplied with an English translation. The author must be Irish by birth, citizenship or long-term residence.
Stories should be submitted via the online form here by editors ONLY. Closing date for entries is 1st September 2013.
Stories may only be submitted by the editor of the publication in which the story appears, with full permission of the author, with a maximum of one story per edition or collection. Self published works, at this stage, are not admissable. An individual author may be entered more than once for the competition if their work appears in more than one publication. It is the editor’s decision which author will represent each of their publications. Submission of an entry is taken as acceptance of all the terms and conditions of entry which can be found here.
