The James White Award is a competition for original short stories of not more than 6,000 words by non-professional writers. The closing date for entries to this year’s competition is midnight (GMT) January 31, 2012. The winner will be announced at Eastercon 2012 during the BSFA Awards ceremony. It is open to entrants from any country but all stories must be in the English language.

The prize for the winner of the James White Award is £200 plus publication in Interzone, the UK’s leading science fiction magazine.

The preferred method of entry is using the online form at but entries by post are also accepted.

Who may enter?

• This aim of the competition is to highlight new writers. It is open to writers of any age and nationality, but it is not open to professional authors.
• Stories must be in English and must be less than 6,000 words in length. Stories over 6,000 words will be disqualified.
• Each author is allowed to enter one story per year. Authors who attempt to submit more than one story will have all their entries disqualified.
• Each story must be accompanied by a completed entry form.
• The competition is free to enter but we encourage authors (and others) to support the competition by making a donation, if they can.
• For the purposes of this competition a “professional author” is defined as one who is eligible for active membership of the Science Fiction Writers of America – that is a writer with three short story sales to qualifying markets or one novel sale to a qualifying market.
• The date on which this criteria will be judged is the closing date of the competition – not when the submission is made.
• A full list of qualifying markets can be found at the SFWA website. We make one addition to that list, which is Interzone.

Your story

• Submissions must be original – they should be the sole work of the author/s in whose name they are submitted – and should not have previously appeared in any publication – in any language or format.
• Stories should be Science Fiction (though we will take a broad definition of what that term means).
• Stories may not have been entered in The James White Award in any previous year.
• Stories may not feature characters/locations/ etc. that are part of other copyrighted works – i.e. nothing set in the universes of Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate etc.

Further details here.

London Comedy Writers does not endorse any of the competitions or opportunities listed on this site and cannot be held responsible for their administration. We provide these links in good faith. You must make your own judgment and do your own research before entering any competition or partaking in any opportunity. If you have had a bad experience with any of these competitions or events listed on the website, please contact us so it can be removed.