A catholic taste
A question we are sometimes asked relates to the types of stories which we accept for the competition. Well, the simple answer is that we welcome those spanning all sorts of genres.
Our dream, in time, would be to run different competitions for different genres, but that is something for the future as we continue to expand in the years to come and for the moment we are keen to have representations from all sorts of writing in our main competition.
So, not only are we seeking stories from that huge catch-all of ‘General Fiction’ but also entries from writers specialising in the likes of ghost stories, horror and science fiction. In fact, they would be appropriate additions to our competition since they are genres which can rightly be credited with helping to create the status of the short story in the first place.
If you examine the history of the short story in the 19th Century and into the 20th Century, it was those genres that produced some of the greatest works from some of the finest writers, authors who understood that the short form can be every bit as effective as the novel, if not more so, in telling a story. Authors like Edgar Allan Poe with his studies in fear or Isaac Asimov, whose evocative tales stand at the very peak of science fiction writing.
And as short stories struggled to survive during the latter stages of the 20th Century, it was writers specialising in those genres who continued to champion the short form.
We hope that we also see more entries from writers who specialise in them.
John Dean