Costa Short Story Award

All relevant updates will be posted on www.costabookawards.com and via Twitter @CostaBookAwards.

The Costa Short Story Award is for a single, previously-unpublished short story of up to 4,000 words by an author aged 18 years or over on 1 January 2014 whose primary residence (ie resident for over six months of the year) has been in the United Kingdom or Ireland since 1 November 2011. UK or Irish nationality is not a requirement.

The submitted story must not have been previously published.

Authors currently serving a term of imprisonment are ineligible for the Award.
**Damn

Entries may only be submitted online via the specific entry form on the Costa Book Awards website www.costabookawards.com

Deadline: 4pm on Friday 1 August 2014.

Entries may be submitted by the author, his/her publisher or his/her agent.
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Although the entries will be assessed anonymously, they must be submitted in the author’s own name.

If the story has already been submitted to other competitions or publications, please ensure that it is given a different title before being submitted to the Costa Short Story Award. This is because, if it has already been commended elsewhere, this would then compromise the anonymity of its author, particularly if it is shortlisted.

• The story must not exceed 4,000 (four thousand) words.
• Typed in Arial 12 pt black font 
• Double-spaced 
• Hard returns between paragraphs 
• (NO indentations anywhere please and NO page numbers) 
• The name of the author must not appear anywhere within the story 
• The name of the story and word count to be included within the header on every page. 
• No more than one story per author may be submitted. 

The judges of the Costa Short Story Award will be looking for what they think is the best entry on the basis of quality and originality of prose, narrative voice and storyline.

All entries will be initially read by a team of readers who will select a smaller number of stories for the judging panel to read. The judging panel of five members will read the short stories selected by the team of readers and will draw up a shortlist of six. These six shortlisted stories will be made available on the Costa Book Awards website between mid-November 2014 and mid-January 2015 and the public will be asked to vote for their favourite.

Authors of the six shortlisted entries will be invited with one guest to attend the Costa Book Awards presentation ceremony in January 2015. After liaising with the six shortlisted authors, Costa will either make arrangements for their travel/accommodation in order that they might attend the ceremony, or reimburse their costs to do so.


The winner and two runners-up will be announced at the Costa Book Awards presentation ceremony in January 2015.

The winner will receive prize money of £3,500. The author in second place will receive £1,500 whilst that in third place will receive £500.
 
By submitting a story, the entrant agrees to (or if the entrant is the author’s publisher or agent it confirms that it has secured the author’s agreement that the author will) attend the Awards ceremony in the event of being shortlisted, and in the event of winning, to undertake a mutually acceptable programme of activities to promote the CSSA particularly immediately after the announcement of the winner has been made. 

**The Copyright wording is a bit overbearing. All entries are covered.

Entrants retain the copyright in their entries, but by submitting a story, entrants acknowledge and agree that each shortlisted entrant:

grants to Costa, its affiliates, licensees, successors and assigns a worldwide sub-licensable, perpetual, transferable, non-exclusive royalty-free licence to use in any way whatsoever including but not limited to, public performance, public display, publishing, reproduction, broadcasting, amendment or modification of the entry or any part of the entry on and through the website in its different present and future forms - for example newsprint, Braille, talking book, podcast, audio download, electronic databases, e-paper, mobile device application, electronic media or website including mobile form or any other facsimile or derivative versions in any medium;