Farrago has joined forces with Helen Lederer’s game-changing Comedy Women in Print (CWIP) to curate The Comedy Short Story Prize, the first award celebrating the funniest short story writing by women. The shortlisted entries will also be published by Farrago, the home of humorous fiction, in a special anthology in September 2023.
This is the newest addition to CWIP’s annual published and unpublished prizes and is set to showcase even more of the wittiest wit written by women - this time in a shorter form of between 5,000-15,000 words per story.
Pete Duncan, publisher of Farrago, says: “What Helen has created with CWIP is extraordinary and we could not be more thrilled now to be adding our part. The biggest half of our mission at Farrago is to champion the work of funny women writers!”
Helen Lederer says: ‘The aim of CWIP has always been to enable unpublished witty authors as well as big up the best published talent in the land - now I can entice some CWIP alumni to include their own short stories in the resulting anthology and set the bar high… what a Christmas present!’
These celebrated writers will be welcomed into the CWIP family which already hails Dolly Alderton, Jesse Sutanto, Nina Stibbe, Laura Steven, and Candice Carty-Williams as celebrated alumni. Honorary awards received by Ruth Jones, Meera Syal, Jilly Cooper, and Deborah Frances-White both support and recognise the world of witty writers.
CWIP, now in its fourth successful year, recognises, celebrates, and encourages witty women authors. The Unpublished Comedy Novel prize each year is a book deal with HarperCollins. The Longlist for all categories will be announced on 14 December 2022 and the Shortlist on 22 February 2023. Recent judges have included Maureen Lipman, Lolly Adefope, and Joanne Harris. Earlier judges included Marian Keyes, Joanna Scanlan, Pauline McLynn, and Shazia Mirza. The winners will be revealed with much laughter and irreverence at the Groucho Club on the 17 April 2023.
Farrago is the humorous fiction imprint of Duckworth Books, and the only imprint in the world dedicated to fiction to make readers smile.
The competition is open to female (identified) authors, including non-binary, writing in the English language, of any nationality over the age of 18 on the closing date: 14 October 2022. Writers from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds are encouraged to enter. There is no fee to enter.
All shortlisted authors for the Comedy Short Story prize will receive from Farrago £100, and the winner will be awarded a further £1,000.
Submissions for the award open 5 September. For more details and full terms and conditions visit the website www.comedywomeninprint.co.uk.
