The 2024 Cymera Prize for Speculative Short Fiction is now closed for entry.

We wish everyone who has submitted the best of luck!

The longlist will be published at the end of May 2024, with the winner announced at Shoreline of Infinity’s Event Horizon event on Saturday 1st June 2024 as part of our 2024 Festival.

Prize for Speculative Short Fiction

Cymera, Scotland’s Festival of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Writing and Shoreline of Infinity, Scotland’s award-winning science fiction magazine are teaming up again to host our short story competition in our quest to discover the best new stories by Scottish writers.

Our 2024 competition has no theme, so let your creative juices flow unhindered!

Remember, we are looking for a speculative story. Explore this future world through the eyes of your character, tell us their story.

Speculative (ADJECTIVE)

Engaged in, expressing, or based on conjecture rather than knowledge.

The Awards

The Cymera Prize for Speculative Short Fiction is open to any writer living in Scotland or Scottish by birth or inclination, aged at least 14 years.

Submissions are open from 15th January 2024 until 6pm GMT on Sunday 31st March 2024.

The winning writer will be awarded £150.

The winner in will be published in Shoreline of Infinity Magazine, and the author will receive a complimentary copy.

New for 2024: The winning story will also be published in the SF Caledonia Paper, released at Cymera Festival. SF Caledonia is a Shoreline of Infinity project created to showcase Scottish SF writing. Find out more at SF Caledonia.

They will also receive a complimentary weekend pass to our 2024 festival.

The two runner-ups will receive a weekend pass to our 2024 festival.

We will also celebrate our competition and its winners in a special event, where the winning story will be read out by professional actors.

Am I Scottish enough?

The Cymera Prize for Speculative Short Fiction is open to anyone who is Scottish by birth or inclination. In more details, you can enter if ONE of the following criteria applies to you.

  1. You were born in Scotland

  2. You currently live in Scotland.

  3. One or both or your parents were born in Scotland

  4. One or both of your grandparents were born in Scotland

  5. You are married to a person who was born in Scotland

  6. You were resident in Scotland for at least six months at some point prior to entering our competition.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please just get in touch on info@cymerafestival.co.uk

 

Need some inspiration? Check out our #Cymera21 event.

Watch our event where our judges Noel Chidwick, Cat Hellisen and Oliver K. Langmead discuss the competition, the shortlist and reveal the winner. Includes a reading from the winning story The Microwave Library by David Tam McDonald, read by Debbie Cannon.

(Contains some tips for writing a good short story)