Commonwealth Short Story Competition
The Commonwealth Short Story Competition exists to increase understanding between and appreciation of different Commonwealth cultures, to showcase the rich diversity of the Commonwealth and to support rising literary talents.
Click here for details of the winners of the 2007 Commonwealth Short Story Competition
The competition has been held each year since 1996, and is administered by the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association on behalf of the Commonwealth Foundation. Each year the competition identifies around 25 outstanding short stories and records them for radio broadcast around the Commonwealth.
Five regional winners are chosen, for Africa, Asia, Caribbean and Canada, Europe and the Pacific, of which one is then selected as the overall winner. Around 20 highly commended stories are also chosen. The overall winner of the competition receives £2,000, regional winners £500 and each highly commended author £100.
All the winning stories are read and professionally recorded onto CD. The CD is sent to radio stations for broadcast across the Commonwealth. Among the broadcasters to air the winning stories in recent years were the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the BBC (UK Radio Four and local radio, and the World Service), Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Cyprus Radio, All India Radio, Malta Broadcasting Association, Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, Radio New Zealand, Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation, South African Broadcasting Corporation, Tonga Broadcasting Association and several Caribbean broadcasters.
Erin Soros of Canada was the overall winner of the 2006 Commonwealth Short Story Competition - click here for more information.
How to enter
Entries are open to anyone who is a citizen of a Commonwealth country, whether an amateur or professional writer. There is no restriction on theme, but the stories must be new, original, and of no longer than six hundred words (around four and a half minutes when read aloud).
The competition is being held again in 2008. More information on entry requirements can be found here or on the CBA website - www.cba.org.uk. The entry deadline is usually at the end of May. All entries should be sent to CBA.
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 | Read the 2005 overall winning entry 16 KB) |
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| Read the 2006 overall winning entry 18 KB) |
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