2016 competition now open for submissions! Deadline 31 July.

This year’s judge is Danielle McLaughlin

First Prize: €2,000

(approx $2153/£1431 in April 2015), publication in the literary journal Southword, AND a week-long residency at Anam Cara Writer’s and Artist’s Retreat.

Second Prize: €500 and publication in Southword.

Four more shortlisted entries will be selected for publication
in Southword and receive a publication fee of €120.

The Seán Ó Faoláin Short Story Competition is an annual short story competition open to writers from around the world, submissions accepted from May to July annually. It is dedicated to one of Ireland’s most accomplished story writers and theorists, sponsored by the Munster Literature Centre.

Anam Cara Writer’s and Artist’s Retreat www.anamcararetreat.com is again awarding a week-long residency to the first prize winner of the Seán Ó Faoláin Short Story Competition. Located just outside the colourful village of Eyeries on the Beara Peninsula in West Cork, Anam Cara is a tranquil spot structured to provide support and sanctuary for people working in the creative arts. It offers private and common working rooms as well as five acres of walking paths, thirty-four nooks and crannies, a river cascades and a river island, gardens, and a labyrinth meadow. Editoral consultation is also available. The prize is valued at €700. (The dates of the residency will be arranged between the writer themselves and Anam Cara, and can be scheduled before or after the week of the Cork International Short Story Festival. Otherwise, the week can be scheduled for another time of the year, at Anam Cara’s discretion.)

More about the 2016 Judge Danielle McLaughlin

Danielle McLaughlin lives in County Cork. Her stories have appeared in The Stinging Fly, Southword, Long Story, Short, The Irish Times, Boyne Berries, Crannóg, The Burning Bush 2, Inktears, and Hollybough. They have also been published in various anthologies, most recently Willesden Herald New Short Stories 7 (2013), The Salt Anthology of New Writing 2013, Scraps – the NFFD Anthology 2013 and have been broadcast on RTE Radio. She has won a number of prizes for short fiction including the Writing Spirit Award for Fiction 2010, the From the Well Short Story Competition 2012, the William Trevor/Elizabeth Bowen International Short Story Competition 2012, The Willesden Herald Short Story Competition 2012 – 2013, the Merriman Short Story Competition in memory of Maeve Binchy, and the Dromineer Literary Festival Short Story Competition 2013. She was awarded an Arts Council Bursary in 2013. Her début collection is forthcoming from The Stinging Fly.

Read her story ‘The Dinosaurs on Other Planets’ in The New Yorker

New Yorker interview with Danielle McLaughlin

To enter, go along to the Munster Literature Centre website.