The 2020 Award with its £1750 prize fund closes in two weeks today, Monday 20th April.
If you want to write a new story at this stage (two weeks to write a story of up to 2200 words is certainly possible) but are stuck for ideas, we’ve seen that several writers are compiling great lists of prompts to help spark creativity. Christopher Fielden, who for years has been offering many resources for writers and runs his own course on writing short stories, has included a list of different inventive prompts from several different writers. American short fiction writers and teachers Nancy Stohlman and Kathy Fish are offering daily prompts for their ‘Unexpected World-Wide Writing Sabbatical’. And we’ve also seen different prompt ‘challenges’ from the online magazine The Cabinet of Heed. which might also help you write a longer piece. It’s always great to see different themes and angles on familiar subjects among the story entries. And if you like, why not try writing a story to the image on this page? Who did paint that yellow number 2 on the road. And why?

We’ve noticed that many of the short listed and winning stories in our BSSA anthologies contain underlying messages of love and hope. So if, in these very difficult times, you can write unusual stories and add these elements, it would be good to read them. We welcome stories on any theme and subject though. It is always interesting to read variety among the entries and thank you to everyone for entering.