I’m really excited to announce the launch of the new annual short story and flash fiction prizes. After running the bi-monthly competitions for a couple of years it seemed like the time was right to take a step up to an annual competition with bigger and better prizes.
As well as getting significant cash prizes the winning and shortlisted stories in both the RW Short Story Prize and RW Flash Fiction Prize will be published by Urbane Publications in the winners’ anthology.
Matthew Smith, founder and owner of this exciting independent publishers, said: ‘I’m thrilled and honoured that Urbane Publications will be in the very privileged position of publishing the winners from this year’s Retreat West Short Story and Flash Fiction prize in an exclusive anthology. Short and flash fiction continues to grow in popularity as a form for both readers and writers, and the sheer quality of many pieces means the competition will be fierce. I can’t wait to collaborate with Retreat West and the winners to create a wonderful book and ebook for readers.’
For me, I’m hoping that the prize will grow in popularity year on year so that the cash prizes for the winners can increase and more great writers can get their work published and read more widely. The quality of the work submitted in previous competitions has been very impressive and I know that the entries for these competitions will be of the same high standard.
Award winning short story and flash writers, Vanessa Gebbie and David Gaffney, are the judges for the 2016 prizes, which are open for submissions now. Find out more on the links below and we all look forward to reading your work! Let me know what you think of the new awards too in the comments below!