The Orwell Society Dystopian Fiction Prize 2021 open for entries
The Orwell Society is organising its seventh annual short story competition for current students (both BA and MA) at British universities. Dystopian narratives of 3,000 words should be sent to Ann Kronbergs, Education Trustee of The Orwell Society, via info@orwellsociety.com, by 1st April 2021. Entry is free.
The judging panel comprises Richard Blair, the son of George Orwell and Patron of The Orwell Society, Luke Seaber of University College, London and Ann Kronbergs, OS Education Trustee and one other judge yet to be confirmed. All submissions are assessed anonymously. The prize of £500 will be announced on 1st May 2021 and comes with a trophy which is a bust of Orwell (to be returned at the end of the award year). Arrangements for the presentation of the Prize will be confirmed when the winner is announced.
The judges will be looking for the narrative which best follows in the tradition set by Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four and which Orwell is most likely to have admired. The winning entry will be published in the Society’s Journal.
Winners to date have come from undergraduate and post-graduate courses in Creative Writing at the following universities: The University of East Anglia, Birmingham City University and the MA in Creative Writing and Publishing at City University London.
Holly Domney, on City University London’s MA in Creative Writing and Publishing, won in 2016. She commented: ‘Winning the prize is a stellar thing to have on your CV and such a fantastic talking point in an interview.’ And she gave this advice to entrants: ‘I took a simple idea and wasn’t afraid to take it to the extreme and make it dark. Always have an agenda when you write, mine was to promote equality between the sexes, what’s yours?’ Maja Olsen, also on City’s MA in Creative Writing and Publishing, winner in 2017, commented: ‘Writing a dystopia is a fantastic way to comment on society or to say: “If we don’t watch out, this is what our reality can look like.” It is also a very exciting genre to write.’
Submission Rules:
All submissions should be in a Word file (not PDF) and begin with a cover page providing title of story, name of author, name of university, name of programme studying on, and full contact details (address, telephone etc). The story should be presented in 12 pt Times Roman double spaced – with each page numbered and it should end with a word count.