Dinesh Allirajah Prize for Short Fiction 2025

Comma Press opens submissions for the Dinesh Allirajah Prize for Short Fiction 2025.

Submissions Close on 22nd September 2024 at midnight.

We are delighted to announce that the Dinesh Allirajah Prize for Short Fiction is once again open for submissions with the theme ‘The Unspoken’.  

The Dinesh Prize was set up following the death of Comma’s much-loved director and founding board member, writer Dinesh Allirajah in 2014. The prize aims to create a lasting legacy out of Dinesh’s love for writing short story fiction during his lifetime.

Now in its eighth year, submissions will be open from 15th July, 2024 and will close on the 22nd September 2024.

This prize is open to both published and unpublished writers and aims to seek out the best established and up and coming voices in the form. 

The theme for this year’s prize is ‘The Unspoken’ 
In short fiction, it’s often the things that are left unsaid or unrevealed that have the most impact – think unanswered questions and ambiguous endings; subtext, silence and narrative gaps. Perhaps it’s unclear what really happened in the story, or something is implied but never clarified. Perhaps the things people say conceal deeper truths or contradictions, perhaps characters are unable to communicate what they really think or feel. Below we’ve picked out some of our favourite examples of stories like this:

Raymond Carver: The Bath
Raymond Carver: Why Don’t You Dance 
Ernest Hemingway: Hills Like White Elephants 
Katherine Mansfield: Bliss

This theme provides room for interpretation and experimentation, so feel free to play with style and genre as you challenge yourself to say what is never said.

Submission Eligibility and Rules
The prize is open to anyone aged 18 years or over who is a resident of the UK, and the story submitted must not have been previously published anywhere else, online or in print.
The prize is free to enter. Please read the following rules carefully and ensure your document is correctly formatted before submitting:  

• Your story must be sent as a Word document. If your story is submitted as a pdf or in any other format it will not be submitted for judging
• Your name must not be included on the document as entries are judged anonymously
• The file name should be the title of your story
• Your story should be 1.5 spaced and include the word count somewhere on the document
• Word count: 2,000 – 7,500 words
• Your story should not contain any images, symbols or unconventional formatting
• For legal reasons, your story should not contain any libellous, blasphemous or copyrighted material

Prize
The winning writer will receive £500 and all shortlisted authors will be featured in an eBook anthology which will be published by Comma Press and sold online.  

Ready to submit?
Once you have checked that your story is correctly formatted using the list above, please submit your entry via Google Form HERE. If you have any questions or issues with this, please get in touch on isabella.barber[at]commapress.co.uk