New Pounds 15,000 Prize Aims to Restore the Glory of the Short Story

Beginning of article

The short story, once the stock in trade of world-famous writers such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Guy de Maupassant and Edgar Allen Poe, has languished in the shadow of the novel for the past decade.

Today, with the announcement at the Edinburgh International Book Festival of the world's largest award for a short story, plans are afoot to put it back at the heart of the modern literary landscape.

In an attempt to rejuvenate the literary form, organisers of the National Short Story Prize are offering pounds 15,000 to the winner and pounds 3,000 for the runner-up in what they hope will become an annual event of the size and prominence of the Man Booker Prize. …