Bristol Short Story Prize (BSSP) is an annual, international writing competition that was founded in 2007 by the editors of the quarterly cultural magazine, Bristol Review of Books. In 2024, after 16 years, the competition moved to the Department of English at the University of Bristol, under the direction of Dr Carrie Etter.
The Bristol Short Story Prize welcomes entires from any genre and from published and unpublished authors alike. Many winners and shortlisted writers from previous BSSP competitions have gone on to secure literary agent representation and enjoy major publication.
Dima Alzayat, winner of the 2017 Bristol Short Story Prize was signed by agent Juliet Pickering at Blake Friedman, a judge for the competition that year. Dima’s debut short story collection, Alligator and Other Stories was published in May 2020 and has been shortlisted for numerous prizes including the James Tait Black Award and the PEN/Robert W Bingham Prize.
Emily Bullock was discovered by literary agent Ed Wilson in the Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology Volume 4. Her debut novel, The Longest Fight, was published by Myriad Books in 2015.
Sufiyaan Salaam won the 2024 #Merky New Writers’ Prize for his novel Wimmy Road Boyz, which is based on a short story that won second prize in the 2022 Bristol Short Story Prize. The novel will be published in 2025.
Dizz Tate, winner of the 2018 competition, had her debut novel, Brutes, published by Faber in 2023 to great acclaim.
Chetna Maroo won second prize in 2017. Her debut novel, Western Lane, was published in 2023 and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
Mahsuda Snaith, first prize winner in 2014, had her debut novel The Things We Thought We Knew published by Transworld in June 2017. Her second novel was published in 2019.