Press release -
Only Four Days Left to Vote for the Costa Short Story Award!
The public vote for the 2014 Costa Short Story Award will close at midnight on Friday 16th January 2015.
Six stories, shortlisted for this year’s Award, are currently available to download either to read or listen to from www.costa.co.uk/costa-book-awards/costa-short-story-award and the public is invited to vote for its favourite.
The winning author and two runners-up will be announced at the Costa Book Awards ceremony on Tuesday 27th January 2015, when the winner will receive £3,500 and the authors in second and third place will receive £1,000 and £500 respectively.
Over 1000 entries were received for this year’s competition, which is now in its third year. The competition, open to both published and unpublished writers, is for a single, previously unpublished short story of up to 4,000 words written in English by an author aged 18 years or over.
All entries were judged anonymously (ie without the identity of the author being available to the judges) by a panel comprising writers Patrick Gale and Victoria Hislop; Richard Beard, Director of the National Academy of Writing; Fanny Blake, novelist, journalist and Books Editor of Woman & Home magazine; and Simon Trewin, agent at William Morris Endeavor.
They selected the following six stories:
Fishskin, Hareskin: Ervet tries to escape her new life as a fishwife by returning to her past and its lost comforts.
Jellyfish: A woman returns with her children to the coast she once called home. A story of silent understanding and enduring love.
Rosa and Thirkel: A tale of a young girl, her father, and a missing dog.
The Glassblower's Daughter: In a 17th century harbour town, a girl lives out her dreams of the sea through the sailors she encounters.
The Liontamer's Husband: The liontamer's husband goes to the circus to confront the lions - but is it woman or beast he is jealous of?
The Matchboy: In Northern Ireland, an only child’s birthday gift to his father unleashes a storm.
The identities of the authors will be revealed after public voting closes on 16th January.
Previous winners of the Award include Avril Joy, a former prison manager and now full-time writer, winner of the inaugural Costa Short Story Award in 2012 for her story Millie and Bird – now published in The Story, Love, Loss and the Lives of Women, edited by Victoria Hislop.
Writer and poet, Angela Readman, won the 2013 Costa Short Story Award for The Keeper of the Jackalopes. The story will feature in her debut short story collection Don’t Try This at Home published by & Other Stories and launching in May 2015.
For more information on this year’s Costa Book Awards, go to www.costa.co.uk/costa-book-awards .
For further press information please contact:
Amanda Johnson
Costa Book Awards Press and Publicity
Telephone: 07715 922 180 (mobile)
Email: amanda@amandajohnsonpr.com
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Costa is the UK’s favourite coffee shop, having been awarded “Best Branded Coffee Shop Chain in the UK and Ireland" by Allegra Strategies for five years running (2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 & November 2014).
Winner of “Best Branded Coffee Chain in Europe” Allegra Strategies 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014.
With over 1,755 coffee shops in the UK and more than 1,000 overseas, Costa is the fastest growing coffee shop business in the UK and the second largest coffee shop operator in the world. Founded in London by Italian brothers Sergio and Bruno Costa in 1971, Costa has become the UK’s favourite coffee shop chain and has recently diversified into both the at-home and gourmet self-serve markets.
Costa employs over 13,000 people and is creating around 1,500 jobs this year and over 4,500 jobs in the next 3 years in the UK.
Costa is committed to looking after coffee-growers. That's why we've established The Costa Foundation, a registered charity. The Costa Foundation's aims are to relieve poverty, advance education and the health and environment of coffee-growing communities around the world. So far, The Costa Foundation has funded the building of 42 schools and improved the social and economic welfare of coffee-growing communities.
