Today, July 1st 2021, LoveReading is thrilled to announce the launch of The Very Short Story Award 2022, the fourth year of this burgeoning competition for short story lovers.

The most inclusive short story competition around, LoveReading's panel of experts invite submissions of stories between 600-1000 words in length, written in English, in any genre and accept entries from all over the world. We accept stories from both unpublished and published authors but only unpublished stories are eligible for entry.

You have until 5.30pm GMT on 31st October 2021 to submit your stories, so get creating. It's a real talent to condense your words into such a short space but we love a short story here at LoveReading and can't wait to read your submissions.

Four judges join us again this year: Liz Robinson, LoveReading editorial expert, Joanne Owen, author and LoveReading expert, Maxim Jakobowski (a book world great) and Matt Bates (booky aficionado). We thank them for their service. They are joined by a new judge and as usual we select a debut author to join the team.  Welcome to Femi Kayode, author of Lightseekers, one of our LoveReading Star Books of 2021. Check out our recent blog post with Femi and read all about his debut novel.

Our experts read the stories blind without knowing anything about the storytellers so it's an incredible platform for writers old and new to have a level playing field.

If you feel you need a little helping hand in creating an award-winning story, do check out this fabulous post by LoveReading expert, author and judge Joanne Owen which will guide you on the path to success: Creating Show-Stopping Short Stories.


The shortlist will be announced in January 2022 and any member of the LoveReading community will have the opportunity to have their say in voting for the People's Choice Award. The winning stories will be announced on 1st March 2022.

If you are interested in finding out more, visit The LoveReading Very Short Story Award page.