V.S. Pritchett Memorial Prize

The Royal Society of Literature's annual prize of £1,000, for the best unpublished short story of the year. The winning entry is also published in Prospect online and the RSL Review.

The V.S. Pritchett Memorial Prize

'The short story, my father once wrote, is "exquisitely difficult". For the author, that is. All the same, I hope that many, many people will enter this competition in his memory. And if they want encouragement and inspiration they may find it in one of his own short stories. There are so many to choose from, but I would particularly recommend “The Evils of Spain”, one of my favourites, from the very beginning of his amazingly long writing career, or the wonderful “Cocky Olly”, written more than half a century later.’

Oliver Pritchett

This prize was founded by the RSL at the beginning of the new millennium to commemorate the centenary of an author widely regarded as the finest English short-story writer of the 20th century, and to preserve a tradition encompassing Pritchett’s warmth of feeling and mastery of narrative.

In addition to the £1,000 prize and publication in Prospect magazine online and the RSL Review, there will be an opportunity for the winner to appear at an RSL event with established short story writers. We are grateful to ALCS for sponsoring this event.

The 2013 Prize

We are pleased to announce that the 2013 V.S. Pritchett Memorial Prize is now open to submissions.

This year's judges are award-winning short story writers Adam Foulds, Jackie Kay and Helen Simpson.

Please download the entry form at the bottom of this page. The closing date for entries is 13 June 2013, and all submissions should be posted with the £5 administrative fee to:

V.S. Pritchett Memorial Prize
Royal Society of Literature
Somerset House
Strand
London WC2R 1LA

For further information, please email Molly Rosenberg.

The 2012 Prize

The judges of this year’s V.S. Pritchett Memorial Prize, Jane Gardam,
Aamer Hussein and Penelope Lively, have selected  Martina Devlin as the 2012 winner, for her story Singing Dumb. There are two runners- up:

Art Lester for Upstream
Clare Colvin for Sehr Schön.

Martina received her award of £1,000 at an evening in celebration of the short story with Jackie Kay on Monday 5 November.

For more information about this year's winner and runners-up, please download the press release at the bottom of the page.

The winning story, Singing Dumb, was published in the December issue of Prospect magazine, out on 15 November, and is featured in the 2013 RSL Review, published in February 2013.

We are grateful to ALCS for making the prize-giving event possible, to Christopher and Jennie Bland for sponsoring the prize and to Prospect magazine for publishing the winning entry.