The Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award
AUDIBLE ANNOUNCED AS NEW SPONSOR OF THE WORLD’S RICHEST SHORT STORY PRIZE 2019
The leading provider of spoken word entertainment will join forces with The Sunday Times to produce an audio anthology for
The Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award 2019, now in its tenth year
Audible, the leading provider of audio storytelling has joined forces with The Sunday Times to sponsor The Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award 2019 as it enters its tenth year. The world’s richest and most prestigious prize for an English-language single short story, the Award has attracted some of the finest literary talent from around the world in the decade since it was inaugurated.
In a ground-breaking agreement, Audible will produce an audio anthology of the stories shortlisted in 2019, making the stories available in audio for the first time. Through this new sponsorship, the prize aims to significantly increase the audience for short stories, whilst raising the profile of its shortlisted writers. The Award already boasts an impressive track record for attracting short fiction; it receives over 1,000 entries each year from all over the world. Last year saw entries from seven continents and 38 countries. Previously sponsored by EFG Private Bank, The Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award is worth £30,000 to the winner, with the shortlisted authors receiving £1,000 each.
Previous winners of the award include three Pulitzer Prize-winning American authors – Junot Díaz, Anthony Doerr and Adam Johnson – as well as Chinese-American novelist Yiyun Li, CK Stead from New Zealand, Jonathan Tel from the UK, Bret Anthony Johnston from America, and Kevin Barry from Ireland. Shortlisted authors include Colum McCann, Petina Gappah, Hilary Mantel, Emma Donoghue, Elizabeth Strout, Ali Smith, David Vann, Gerard Woodward, Curtis Sittenfeld and Miranda July. The 2018 winner was American writer Courtney Zoffness.
Andrew Holgate, literary editor of the Sunday Times comments: “I am absolutely thrilled that Audible have agreed to be the new sponsors of The Sunday Times Short Story Award. The prize has come a very long way in a short time. This new partnership represents a significant step change, and will take both the award, and the short story that we are working so hard to champion, into many more households around the world than ever before.”
Tracey Markham, SVP and UK country manager at Audible, comments: “Listeners and creatives are flocking to audio, and after the success of our own recent short story collection, our listeners have told us they are excited for more brilliant short fiction. We are delighted to be teaming up with one of the short story’s biggest champions, The Sunday Times, to find the best stories out there and give Audible members access to more of the best original content. We can’t wait to hear the shortlisted stories and we couldn’t be more thrilled to bring them to audio and give them a bigger audience than ever before.”
As well as its notable list of winners and shortlistees, one of the features of the prize has been its distinguished list of judges, who have included Sebastian Faulks, Tessa Hadley, Joanna Trollope, Richard Eyre, Lionel Shriver, AS Byatt, Nick Hornby, Hanif Kureishi, Mark Haddon, Will Self, David Baddiel, Sarah Hall, Rose Tremain, Sir Melvyn Bragg and John Carey.
The judges read the entries ‘blind’, without knowing the author’s identity. The success of past judging panels has seen the Award celebrate not only the work of literary giants, but allowed it to discover and promote new and emerging talent such as Jessie Greengrass, Roshi Fernando, Rebecca F John, and last year’s winner Courtney Zoffness.
The judges this year will be looking for an outstanding English-language story of 6,000 words or under from a fiction author from anywhere in the world who has been published in the UK or Ireland. The winner will be announced on Thursday 12th September 2019.
All details can be found at: www.shortstoryaward.co.uk
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“The best gifts come in small packages.”
Anne Enright
