Bursary marks tenth anniversary of Asham Award
Posted on 18/11/2004The Asham Award 2005-2006, the prestigious biennial short story competition for new women writers, celebrates its tenth anniversary with the launch of the 2005-2006 competition and a £1,000 bursary offered to the writer who shows particular promise and originality. The bursary, which is in addition to £3,600 prize money offered, is sponsored by the Asham Trust and the Arts Council and will enable the winner to travel, undertake research or study, or devote more time to writing.
Asham House in Sussex was once home to Virginia and Leonard Wolff and is the inspiration behind the biennial Asham Award, launched in 1996 to support and encourage new writers and Britain’s only prize for short stories by women. The Award runs in a two-year cycle, the competition one year, followed by the publication of winning stories the following year. Last year’s collection of winning stories, Shoe Fly Baby, was published by Bloomsbury for the first time and included specially commissioned stories by leading novelists, Lesley Glaister, Maggie O’Farrell, Kamila Shamsie and Literary Editor of The Times, Erica Wagner. It also included the title story, Shoe Fly Baby, by thirty-two year old Victoria Briggs, who writes for the Guardian and won first prize. Her story is set in London and tells of a young man’s obsession with shoes. Second prize winner The Monarch by Lucy Lepchani, joint third prize winners, Victoria by Hilary Plews and Gravity by Naomi Alderman and the other nine stories on the short-list were published in the anthology.
Applications are now invited for the 2005-6 Asham Award for Women which will be judged by Lynne Truss, author of Eats, Shoots and Leaves, novelist Louise Doughty and director of Booktrust, Chris Meade. Lynne Truss and Louise Doughty will contribute stories to the anniversary anthology along with three of our most distinguished short story writers, Helen Dunmore, Helen Simpson and Marina Warner. Over 700 unknown writers entered the 2003-4 competition and Francine Stock, chairman of judges, said: ‘The quality of the writing this year has been excellent and both I and my fellow judges are delighted to have the opportunity to champion the short story, which is currently a much undervalued form,’ and so there is much to look forward to in the 2005-6 Asham Award.
Prize fund
1st prize: £1,000; 2nd prize: £500; 3rd prize: £250 each; runners up: £200 each
Criteria for entry
Stories must not exceed 4,000 words in length and can be on any subject
The Award is unique in that the winners are guaranteed publication alongside established women writers.
The Asham Trust was set up in 1996 to support and encourage new writers. The Asham Award is its flagship project, named after Asham House in Sussex where Virginia and Leonard Woolf lived. The Award runs in a two-year cycle, the competition one year, followed by the publication of winning stories the following year. Previous Asham Award anthologies published by Serpent’s Tale are: The Catch (1997), Reshape whilst Damp (2000) and Harlot Red (2002). This year’s collection of winning stories Shoe Fly Baby was published by Bloomsbury for the first time.
From the start, the Award has been closely associated with the Charleston Festival, programmed by Asham trustee Diana Reich. Writers who have been involved with the Asham Award over the years include Carol Shields, Helen Dunmore, Kate Atkinson, Deborah Moggach, Rachel Cusk, Candia McWilliam, Louise Doughty, Michèle Roberts, Barbara Trapido, Patricia Duncker, Maggie O’Farrell and AL Kennedy.
Asham also aims to link new writers with established novelists and poets. Its award-winning youth mentoring scheme matched up sixteen young people with writers of their choice in a one-to-one collaboration. Mentors have included Alan Brownjohn, Tobias Hill, Robert Edric, Stella Duffy and Selina Hill. In September 2004 the Asham Trust in collaboration with Charleston launched the first dedicated short story festival, Small Wonder at Charleston in Sussex. A stellar cast of authors took part including Yann Martel, Alexei Sayle, Ali Smith, William Trevor, Hanif Kureishi, Patricia Duncker, Helen Simpson, Louisa Young, Anne Donovan and Marina Warner.
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