Book Awards & Writing Competitions - United Kingdom

Bath Novel Award

£2,000 international prize for unpublished or independently published writers of novels for adults or young adults. Judge: Susan Armstrong of Conville & Walsh Literary Agency. £22 entry fee per novel. First 5,000 words plus one page synopsis....

Avon,   UK

BBC National Short Story Award

The National Short Story Award aims to promote the best in contemporary British short fiction and has celebrated both established writers and new stars over the last decade.The Award is open to UK residents or nationals, aged 18 or over, who have a history of publication in creative writing.

The...

London,   UK

BBC Young Writers’ Award

Young people aged 14 to 18, who live in the UK, are invited to submit short stories of up to 1,000 words on any topic. The judges will be looking for high-quality writing, stories that demonstrate originality, imagination and creativity, and writers who can capture the reader and hold their attentio...

London,   UK

Betty Trask Prize & Awards

The Betty Trask Prize and Awards are for first novels written by authors under the age of 35, who reside in a current or former Commonwealth nation. The award was established in 1984 by the Society of Authors, at the bequest of the late Betty Trask, a reclusive author of over thirty romance novels.<...

London,   UK

Branford Boase Award

The BBA rewards the most promising new writers and their editors. The award is made annually to the most promising book by a first time novelist.

The author may have published other books in another genre - for example, poetry or a picture book - but eligibility for the prize requires that this is...

Hants ,   UK

Bridport Prize

The mission of the Bridport Prize is to encourage emerging writers and promote literary excellence through its competition structure. The Bridport Prize was founded by Bridport Arts Centre in 1973 and has steadily grown in stature and prestige.

The poem and short story categories each have a fi...

Bridport,   UK

British Book Awards

The British Book Awards, or Nibbies, is the definitive event for honouring the commercial successes of publishers, authors and bookshops. It succeeds 2016’s British Book Industry Awards.

There have been many notable winners over the years. Faber was the first publisher of the year in 1990 and in...

London,   UK

Carnegie Medal

The Carnegie Medal is awarded annually to the writer of an outstanding book for children. The book must have received its first publication in the United Kingdom or have had co-publication elsewhere within a three month time lapse. In the case of e-books and short stories or poetry previously publis...

London,   UK

Costa Book Awards

CANCELLED AS OF 2022

The Costa Book Awards honour some of the most outstanding books of the year written by authors based in the UK and Ireland. There are five categories - First Novel, Novel, Biography, Poetry and Children’s Book - with one of the five winners chosen as Book of the ...

London,   UK

Exeter Writers Short Story Competition

The competition is open to published and unpublished authors living anywhere in the world and writing in English. Stories must not have been previously published, nor have won a prize in any other competition. They can be in any genre except for children’s and should be no longer than 3,000 w...

Devon,   UK

Fiction Desk Ghost Story Competition

’Ghost story’ can mean a lot of different things, from an encounter with an actual phantom to more unusual paranormal phenomena and unexplained events.

Entries should be between 1,000 and 5,000 words in length.

The competition is judged by Rob Redman, editor of the anthology se...

Rye,   UK

International Prize for Arabic Fiction

The International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) is an annual literary prize run with the support of the Booker Prize Foundation in London and funded by the TCA Abu Dhabi in the UAE.

The Prize was launched in Abu Dhabi in April 2007 with an intention to address the limited international avail...

London,   UK

John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger

This award is for the best crime novel by a first-time author of any nationality first published in the UK in English during the judging period. It is given in memory of CWA founder John Creasey and was previously known as The John Creasey Memorial Award....

Norwich,   UK

Margery Allingham Short Story Competition

The CWA Margery Allingham Short Story competition was set up in 2013 to celebrate the short story and Margery Allingham's contribution to crime writing. Supported by the Margery Allingham Society we are delighted that this competition will run annually.

The competition is open to all - both publ...

Norwich,   UK

Peggy-Chapman Andrews Award

This prize is for a first novel from a resident of Great Britain. Entrants to the novel prize are required to submit a short 300 word synopsis with their entry....

Bridport,   UK

Red Shed Open Poetry Competition

This open poetry competition to anyone aged 16 and over. Entries should be unpublished poems up to 50 lines in length....

Wakefield,   UK

Small but Mighty Writers

Our competitions run all year round with deadlines on 1st January, 1st April, 1st July, 1st October. Winners will be released within 3 weeks of the deadline.

7-11: 1000 word limit for fiction, 15 line max. for poetry 12-15: 1500 word limit for fiction, 20 line max. for poetry

Entry is ...

Bradford,   UK

Speaking Volumes Christian Book Awards

The purpose is to promote what is best in Christian writing in the UK and to encourage the writing of Christian books. Lately it has focused on what makes a good Christian library book by looking specifically at books that would sit comfortably on a public library shelf.

The awards were known as...

Whittlesford Cambs,   UK

Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year

Run in Association with The Authors' Club, the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year is the centrepiece of the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards.

The prize, which is judged by a panel of travel writers, celebrates excellence in literary travel writing and is open to authors from all acro...

London,   UK

Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award

Launched in 2009 by Lord Matthew Evans, former chairman of EFG Private Bank and Cathy Galvin from The Sunday Times, The Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award is the richest prize for a single short story in the English language open to any novelist or short story writer from around the world who is pub...

London,   UK

UKLA Book Award

The UKLA Book Awards seek to celebrate children's books in order to encourage teachers to increase their professional and personal knowledge of recently published high quality children's books and promote the place of books for young people in all educational settings from nursery to key stage 4. ...

Leicester ,   UK

V.S. Pritchett Memorial Prize

This prize for the best unpublished short story of the year 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...

London,   UK

Wellcome Book Prize

The Wellcome Book Prize is an annual award, open to new works of fiction or nonfiction. To be eligible for entry, a book should have a central theme that engages with some aspect of medicine, health or illness. This can cover many genres of writing – including crime, romance, popular science,...

London,   UK

Wicked Young Writers' Award

The Wicked Young Writers’ Award was established by the long-running musical Wicked in order to link the important messages of the production with a competition that would inspire young people to use their writing to look at life a little differently. Since its launch in 2010, we have received ...

Chichester,   UK

Petrona Award

The Petrona Award has been established to celebrate the work of Maxine Clarke, one of the first online crime fiction reviewers and bloggers, who died in December 2012. Maxine, whose online persona and blog was called Petrona, was passionate about translated crime fiction but in particular that from ...

Redditch , Worcestershire   UK

Buxton Poetry Competition

The Buxton Poetry Competition is open to three categories of writers: Children aged up to 11 years old, Young People aged 12 to 17, and Open (18 and up). ...

Buxton, Derbyshire   UK

Arthur C. Clarke Award

The Arthur C. Clarke Award is given for the best science fiction novel first published in the United Kingdom during the previous year. The award was established with a grant given by Sir Arthur C. Clarke and the first prize was awarded in 1987 to Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.

The prize am...

London, England   UK

Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction

The Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction was set up to celebrate excellence, originality and accessibility in writing by women throughout the world. Known from 1996 to 2012 as the Orange Prize for Fiction and in 2013 as the Women's Prize for Fiction, it is the UK’s most prestigious annual book aw...

London, England   UK

Exeter Story Prize

The Exeter Story Prize is for a story of up to ten thousand words. There is no minimum word count. Authors must be over 18 years old, and stories should not have been previously published in print, on the internet or broadcast..

Stories may be on any theme but only humorous stories will be elig...

Exeter, England   UK

Page Turner Awards

Awards are offered in five categories:
Writing Award : for unpublished, completed manuscripts Young Writer Award : for writers aged between 18 and 25 Writing Mentorship Award : for uncompleted manuscripts Screenplay Award : for scriptwriters with a completed screenplay Book Award : for...

Speen, England   UK

Royal Society Young People's Book Prize

Each year the Royal Society celebrates the best books that communicate science to young people through our Young People’s Book Prize.

The Prize aims to inspire young people to read about science and promotes the writing of excellent, accessible books for under-14s.

Each shortlisted book ...

London, England   UK

Welsh Poetry Competition

The International Welsh Poetry Competition is an annual English language poetry award and the largest of its kind in Wales. The contest was founded in 2007 by Welsh poet and photographer Dave Lewis....

Pontypridd, Wales   UK