News

Special Book Sale — 2015, 2016, 2017 BSSA anthologies.

Christmas presents for your short story loving parent, grandparent, sibling, husband, wife, partner, uncle, aunt, friend or lover. Our 2015, 2016 and 2017 Anthologies are all for sale for only £5.00 each including postage and packing, to UK residents. Stocks limited so buy soon.
Read excellent stories on many different subjects by writers from all over the world in each of these volumes: Buy here:
Writers in the 2015 anthology:  Safia Moore, Dan Powell, Angela Readman, KM Elkes, Lucy Corkhill, Eileen Merriman, Barbara Weeks, Sarah Collins, Emma Seaman, Emily Devane, Anne Corlett, Anna Metcalfe, Alice Falconer, Adam Kucharksi, Fran Landsman, Fiona Mitchell, Debbi Voisey, Chris Edwards-Pritchard, John Holland Continue reading →

Judge 2019

We’re delighted that Samuel Hodder has agreed to be our judge for the Bath Short Story Award 2019. Samuel is a literary agent from Blake Friedmann. Read about the sort of fiction that appeals to him, to prompt your short story entry. We’ll also posting an interview with him shortly. Continue reading →

2019 Bath Short Story Award

 

The seventh international Bath Short Story Award is now open for entries and closes at midnight BST, 15th April 2019. The longlist will be published in mid-late June, 2019, the short list in mid July and final results will be out in late July This year the short list judge is literary agent, Samuel Hodder, from Blake Friedmann Literary Agency.

Prizes for the 2019 Award are: £1200 first prize, £300 second prize, £100 third prize, £100 for the Acorn Award (for an unpublished writer), £50  for the local prize. Continue reading →

Local Prize Winner, Chloe Turner, at Mr B’s Bookshop, Bath

Local Prize winner from our 2018 BSSA Award, Chloe Turner, was presented with her prize of book vouchers donated by Mr B’s Emporium of Books at the bookshop last week. It’s the second year in a row that Chloe, who lives near Stroud, in Gloucestershire has won the prize. This year it was for her wonderful story ‘Witches Sail in Eggshells’. Here she is with Ed, from the bookshop having  received her voucher, our card and a celebratory bottle. Continue reading →

BSSA 2018 Award Round-Up

Thank you very much to everyone who entered the 2018 International Bath Short Story Award. This year we received 1100 entries from thirty-four countries. Our team of ten initial readers enjoyed reading your entries and it was, as always, tough selecting the final fifty stories from a strong field. Authors from Australia, Canada, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, the USA and the UK are represented on the longlist and many different themes and subject matters are covered – including, this year, the effects of climate change and world politics, along with dystopian futures, relationships between family, friends and lovers, dysfunctional and otherwise. Such themes were widespread throughout all the entries and it is interesting to have different cultural takes on this mix. Continue reading →

Shortlisted authors, BSSA 2018

Our shortlisted writers, who will be published in the BSSA anthology 2018, along with the winning and commended writers, are listed below in alphabetical order. Congratulations to all. We’re excited that all these wonderful stories are going to be in print in the autumn. Shortlist judge, Euan Thorneycroft made the following comments about the shortlist:

“You never know what you are going to get when judging a short story competition – but you know that it’s more than likely going to be diverse. The shortlist didn’t disappoint. I was taken from the UK to Australia with detours to the Middle East, Japan and North America. And I was plunged into the lives of different characters dealing with a variety of emotions — grief, disappointment, anger and guilt to name a few. The writing was of a high standard throughout and every one of these stories had things to commend them”. Continue reading →

BSSA 2018 Winners

We’re delighted to announce the winners and commended writers for Bath Short Story Award, 2018. Congratulations to all seven writers and many thanks to our shortlist judge, Euan Thorneycroft, Senior Literary Agent from A M Heath literary agency, for selecting the winning stories and for his comments. You can also read his general comments on the short list here. All the winning and the shortlisted stories will be published in our sixth BSSA anthology which will be available for sale on this website and elsewhere in the Autumn. Continue reading →

Your BSSA 2018 short story entry — final checks and balances

There are just eleven days to go before our £1750 prize fund award closes at midnight BST on Monday 23rd April. If you are thinking of entering your up to 2200 word story, check the following and make your story stand out from the crowd.
Think about your title. In 2015, Clarke’s World, one of the great SF/F literary magazines,  reached 50,000 submissions and editor Neil Clarke decided to run an analysis to see what the most common titles were. Here are the fifteen titles which were most frequently submitted to the magazine:

Dust, The Gift, Home, Hunger, Homecoming,The Box, Monsters, Lost and Found, Sacrifice,The Hunt, Flight, Heartless, The End, Alone, Legacy

A  post on Electric Literature referring to this article is worth a read.
We’ve also seen many stories with these titles and similar ones in all the six years of the competition. And we’ve read a few very good stories with such titles, which have been long or short-listed– but if you want to draw those first readers in, find a more arresting one that adds a further level to your piece.

You can also look at how your title relates to the first paragraph of your story. The beginning of the 2017 winning story by Kathy Stevens, pictured here, is a good example of this. The first paragraph complements the title and suggests the different personalities in the family and the conflicts between them. This whole first page shows a character with a strong voice who makes funny and astute observations.The voice and the humour were some of the things our short story judge, Euan Thorneycroft, who is judging again this year, particularly liked about the story. Nothing is wasted in this opening. We are straight into the situation at home and want to know what happens next.

Finally, is your story balanced? Does the ending balance the beginning, so that it ties up in a satisfying way. Satisfying does not usually mean a neat ending. In Kathy’s story, we don’t know exactly what will happen to the character after the end line, but the ending provokes further questions which are connected to the family dynamic that is set up at the beginning.

Remember to check the rules for the competition as a last thing. We always receive entries with the author’s name on the piece which means immediate disqualification as stories are judged anonymously. We always receive entries that are hundreds or even thousands of words too long.

We appreciate everyone who enters and supports the Award. Our filter readers are already on the case and are enjoying reading through the first batches. Good luck to all.

BSSA team member, Jude Higgins, April 12th 2018.