The public vote for the 2014 Costa Short Story Award will close at midnight on Friday 16th January 2015.
Six stories, shortlisted for this year’s Award, are currently available to download either to read or listen to from www.costa.co.uk/costa-book-awards/costa-short-story-award and the public is invited to vote for its favourite.
The winning author and two runners-up will be announced at the Costa Book Awards ceremony on Tuesday 27th January 2015, when the winner will receive £3,500 and the authors in second and third place will receive £1,000 and £500 respectively.
Over 1000 entries were received for this year’s competition, which is now in its third year. The competition, open to both published and unpublished writers, is for a single, previously unpublished short story of up to 4,000 words written in English by an author aged 18 years or over.
All entries were judged anonymously (ie without the identity of the author being available to the judges) by a panel comprising writers Patrick Gale and Victoria Hislop; Richard Beard, Director of the National Academy of Writing; Fanny Blake, novelist, journalist and Books Editor of Woman & Home magazine; and Simon Trewin, agent at William Morris Endeavor.
They selected the following six stories:
Fishskin, Hareskin: Ervet tries to escape her new life as a fishwife by returning to her past and its lost comforts.
Jellyfish: A woman returns with her children to the coast she once called home. A story of silent understanding and enduring love.
Rosa and Thirkel: A tale of a young girl, her father, and a missing dog.
The Glassblower’s Daughter: In a 17th century harbour town, a girl lives out her dreams of the sea through the sailors she encounters.
The Liontamer’s Husband: The liontamer’s husband goes to the circus to confront the lions – but is it woman or beast he is jealous of?
The Matchboy: In Northern Ireland, an only child’s birthday gift to his father unleashes a storm.
The identities of the authors will be revealed after public voting closes on 16th January.
Previous winners of the Award include Avril Joy, a former prison manager and now full-time writer, winner of the inaugural Costa Short Story Award in 2012 for her story Millie and Bird – now published in The Story, Love, Loss and the Lives of Women, edited by Victoria Hislop.
Writer and poet, Angela Readman, won the 2013 Costa Short Story Award for The Keeper of the Jackalopes. The story will feature in her debut short story collection Don’t Try This at Home published by & Other Stories and launching in May 2015.
For more information on this year’s Costa Book Awards, go to www.costa.co.uk/costa-book-awards .
