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Willesden Herald Short Story Competition 2022

Guidelines

This competition is open to all aged 18 or over, regardless of nationality or country of residence. There is no set theme. You may submit as many entries as you wish but there will be no more than one prize per author. You can find examples of what we like in our back issues and also in our Story of the Month features, as well as in the periodicals listed under Links. We’re generally looking for literary fiction not genre stories.

“Willesden Herald: New Short Stories 12” will be published simultaneously in the US and the UK and will be available from online booksellers by print on demand. We can also do print runs on favourable terms when bulk orders are requested. Our publisher is Willesden Herald Books, an imprint of Pretend Genius Press, which is a cooperative venture based in Maryland USA. The printers we use have production and distribution facilities in the US, the UK and Australia.

Prizes

  • 1st. £300 + one-off Willesden Herald mug inscribed “Willesden Short Story Prize 2022”
  • 2nd. £200
  • 3rd. £100
  • 7 x £50
  • All ten winning stories will be published in “Willesden Herald: New Short Stories 12”.
  • A copy of the anthology will go to each of the ten prizewinners.

Judging and Dates

All judging will be anonymous. Using the Submittable “blind” setting we don’t see who has sent in the stories till after the judging. 

We may invite a guest judge to select the winning entries from a longlist. A final check is then made that each selected item is within the rules and if not it will be replaced by another from the longlist.

The results will be announced online and by messages to the writers concerned.

  • Closing date: 31 August 2022
  • Results due by 31 October 2022
  • Publication date: There is no fixed date as yet but it is our intention that the book will be produced as soon as possible after the closing date, by December if possible. The copies of the book that form part of the prize will be sent when publication is ready, which will follow after the award of the monetary prizes.

Copyright

You retain worldwide copyright in your story. We assume only first UK and US serial publication rights for inclusion of your short story in the book “Willesden Herald: New Short Stories 12”, which will be published simultaneously in the UK and US.

Rules

  • Entries must be in English. We cannot consider translations.
  • Entries must be entirely your own individual work and never previously published or broadcast.
  • The word range this year is from 1000 to 7000 words.
  • You must be aged 18 or over.
  • Manuscripts must show no name, address or identifying marks other than the title of the story.
  • Any comment or enquiry to the readers or judges about an entry before the results are out may disqualify.
  • If your story has won a prize or was short-listed in another public competition, it is excluded.
  • Entries must not contain any quotes for which copyright might have to be obtained, e.g. song lyrics.
  • Please withdraw your story if it is accepted for publication elsewhere before our results are announced.
  • Organisers and sponsors of this competition and their close relatives are excluded from entering.
  • We will not enter into any correspondence about entries or results.
  • Unfortunately we cannot help with any payment problems you might experience due to geographical location, computer system incompatibilities or other issues.
  • Entries are only accepted by uploading via our page in the Submittable.com system.

Data Protection

We wish to communicate entirely through Submittable.com’s message system, not collecting any of your data outside of that. We won’t pass your information to anyone else unless compelled to do so by law.

Acceptance

Submission shall be taken as acceptance of these terms.

SUBMIT

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