Frazzled Lit Short Story Award - Rules
Here are the Rules and Terms & Conditions for the competition
The Frazzled Lit Short Story Award 2025 will be judged by Nuala O’Connor, and opens for entries on June 1st through June 30th 2025.
Nuala O’Connor lives in Co. Galway, Ireland. Her sixth novel Seaborne, about Irish-born pirate Anne Bonny, was nominated for the Dublin Literary Award and was shortlisted for Eason Novel of the Year at the 2024 An Post Irish Book Awards. Her fifth poetry collection, Menagerie, was published by Arlen House in spring 2025.
You can watch Jennifer's interview with Nuala in our Writer To Writer section.
Rules and Terms & Conditions
The competition
1. The Frazzled Lit Short Story Award will be judged by international award-winning author Nuala O’Connor, who will pick the winners from the final six stories selected by Jennifer and Laura.
2. Prizes are as follows: 1st prize, 1,000 euro. 2nd prize, 500 euro. 3rd prize, 300 euro.
3. All ten shortlisted stories will be published in a special edition of Frazzled Lit, and will be eligible for future Pushcart and Best Of The Net nominations.
4. The competition opens on June 1st 2025.
5. The competition closes on June 30th 2025.
6. All stories submitted to the competition will be blind-read by Jennifer and Laura.
Eligibility
1. This is an international competition, and is open to writers in every part of the world, but please note that all entries must be in English.
2. Writers submitting to this competition must be 18 years of age or over at the time of submission.
3. The entry fee must be paid for each story submitted.
4. Entries must not have been previously published or broadcast in any form, and must not have won any previous competitions.
5. As we will not be using our reading panel for this competition, members of our reading panel are eligible to submit to the competition.
6. This is an unthemed competition, and we are happy to read work on any theme and subject, provided it is not racist, homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic, ableist, or hateful towards any person or group. Further, we do not wish to read anything that is gratuitously violent or erotic, or contains excessive gore. Animal cruelty of any sort is not acceptable to us.
7. Stories generated using AI or for which AI has been used to help in their creation will be disqualified, and no refund of the entry fee will be given.
Your submission(s) to the competition
1. All submissions must be made via Duosuma, unless you have been awarded free entry to the competition.
2. There is an entry fee of 12 euro per story.
3. You may submit as many stories as you wish, provided the entry fee is paid for each story submitted.
4. All stories submitted to the competition must be in English.
5. Stories must be between 750 – 2,000 words, excluding title.
6. Stories should be in Times New Roman 12 pt, and either double or one and a half spaced.
7. The file name must be the name of your story, or if the story is untitled, the first 5 words from the opening line of the story. DO NOT include your name in either the story document or the document file name.
8. Simultaneous submissions are allowed, but please let us know as soon as possible if your story is accepted or shortlisted elsewhere.
9. You may provide a bio with your submission if you wish, but we won’t read it until winners have been selected.
Timing of announcements
1. We will announce the longlist by the end of July 2025 or earlier, the shortlist two weeks later, and the final six stories will be announced shortly thereafter.
2. Winners will be announced at the end of August, with prize money being sent out to the winners via PayPal within two weeks of the winners announcement.
Additional Terms & Conditions
1. While we hope it won’t be necessary, Frazzled Lit reserves the right to cancel the competition in the event that we do not receive enough entries to make up the prize fund plus costs. If we do cancel the competition, we will refund the entry fees for all eligible stories.
2. Frazzled Lit reserves the right to alter the rules and terms and conditions of the competition without prior notice, as the editors of Frazzled Lit deem necessary for the smooth running of the competition.