This competition is now closed. The winners have been announced.

This competition will return in September 2014. Find out more about this year’s competition here.

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With a prize fund of £1,000, we are proud to announce our Second Annual Short Story Competition

 First prize: £500

Second prize: £300

 Third prize: £200

 The winning story will be published in an issue of The London Magazine, both in print and online. The 2 runners up will be featured on the website.

 Opening Date: 1^st September

 Closing Date: 31^st October

 Entry Fee: £10 per story. There is no limit to the number of stories submitted.

• We will consider short stories of up to 4,000 words in length (no flash fiction). The title is NOT included in the word count.
• The competition is open to everyone: it is not restricted to those who live in the UK.
• For more details on what we are looking for in a short story, please visit our ‘submission guidelines’. 

Please refer to The London Magazine before submitting your work to see the type of material we publish.

The competition will be judged by: 

Stephen May & Avril Joy 

Stephen May has been a barman a warehouseman, a journalist, a teacher and a cook. His first novel Tag won the Readers Choice prize at the 2009 Wales Book of the Year. His second Life! Death! Prizes! Was shortlisted for Costa Novel of the Year 2012 and his third Wake Up Happy Every Day will be published by Bloomsbury in March 2014. He lives and works in West Yorkshire. He also has a website http://www.sdmay.com/

Avril Joy was the winner of the 2012 inaugural Costa Short Story Award for her story Millie and Bird. Her first novel, The Sweet Track, was published in 2007 by Flambard Press. In 2008 she gave up her job as a Senior Manager at HMP Low Newton women’s prison, Durham in order to write. She writes novels, short stories and poetry. Her short stories have appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies, most recently in Root, a collection of short stories from writers in the North published in 2013 by Iron Press. She blogs regularly about writing and life at www.avriljoy.com and is currently working on a collection of stories Millie and Bird and Tales of Paradise.

This competition is proudly sponsored by Al Arab Newspaper

Entry Format

• Entries must be in English.
• Postal entries must be single-sided, typed, with pages numbered and securely fastened with a staple. Each entry must be on a new sheet.
• The filename of email entries must be the author followed by the title of the story. It must be either a .doc, pdf or .txt file.
• Entries must be labelled clearly with your name, address and email address on the front page.
• Entries will not be returned, so please make sure to keep a copy.
• No corrections can be made after receipt, nor fees refunded.
• Please ensure that you use the correct postage. 

Publication

• The London Magazine will have the unrestricted right to publish the winning stories (including runners up) in the magazine and online. 

Payment details

• Fees are payable by paypal, credit/debit card, cheque or postal order.
• Cheques must be in pounds and should be payable to The London Magazine with your name and address on the back.
• Credit card payments can be accepted by telephone.
• Receipt of entry will be received by email regardless of the manner of sending.

Results

• The winning entries will be notified by email or post.
• We will do our best to respond to every entry

 Postal entries should be marked ‘Short Story Competition’ and sent to:

The London Magazine
11 Queen’s Gate
London

SW7 5EL

 Email submissions should be sent to:

competition@thelondonmagazine.org

The subject line should include your name, the title of the story, and then ‘Short Story Competition’.

Please note: When paying through Paypal  after clicking ‘Add to Cart’ your order will appear at the top of the page in the shopping cart next to ‘Editions’. You can then click on that to proceed to the payment page.

We cannot accept submissions without the entry and payment forms.