The Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize 2024

APPLICATIONS ARE CLOSED.

Awarded for the best piece of writing on the theme of ‘Language’.

Prizes:

The winner and runners-up will receive cash prizes and will be invited to attend our annual symposium. We will offer up to £500 travel expenses to help with travel to the event and meals and accommodation during the symposium dates are also covered.

The symposium will take place from Sat 6th - Tue 9th July 2024 in Tuscany, Italy.

First place: £3,000

Second place: £1,000

Third place: £1,000

Rules:

  • All genres of writing are permitted, including fiction, non-fiction, and non-academic essays.

  • Open to all nationalities.

  • Applicants must be aged 18 or above at the time of entry.

  • All entries must be written in English.

  • Limited to one entry per person.

  • Submissions must be standalone and cannot be extracted from a larger piece.

  • A maximum of 2,500 words per entry.

  • Stories must not have been published (not including self-published), or accepted for publication in print or online, or have won or been placed in another competition at any time.

  • Travel expenses can be used for economy travel costs only and are not exchangeable for cash, any leftover travel budget will not be redeemed as cash.

  • Travel expenses can be used for transport only, and can not be used towards accommodation outside of the dates of our symposium.

  • Submissions will be judged anonymously, so please ensure that your name does not appear anywhere on your work.

  • Due to the volume of applications, the judge’s decisions are final and no correspondence will be entered into following the results.

Key dates:

Applications open: 1st January 2024
Applications close: 1st March 2024 at 23:59 (UK time)

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*Please note: we reserve the right to change any aspect of our prizes at any point during the submission or judging process or to not award a prize if we choose.


Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize 2023

2023 - On Flourishing

Winners (joint): Judith O’Reilly and Laura Theis

Runners up: Zaqary Fekete and Pooja Poudel

Laura Theis

Laura Theis writes in her second language. Her work has been widely anthologized and appears in Poetry, Magma, Asimov’s, Mslexia, Rattle, Strange Horizons, the Caterpillar and elsewhere. Her Elgin Award-nominated debut, how to extricate yourself, an Oxford Poetry Library Book of the Month, won the Brian Dempsey Memorial Prize. Her follow-up, A Spotter’s Guide to Invisible Things, won the Live Canon Collection Prize and received the Society of Authors’ Arthur Welton Award. Her third collection is forthcoming with Broken Sleep Books in early 2025. 

Recent accolades include the Alpine Fellowship, Oxford Brookes Poetry Prize, Poets and Players Prize, AM Heath Prize, and the Mogford Short Story Prize judged by Stephen Fry and Prue Leith. She was nominated for the Forward Prize and a finalist for the BBC Short Story Prize, the Women Poets' Prize, the Bridport Prize and the National Poetry Competition. 

Judith O’Reilly

Judith O’Reilly is the author of three page-turning action thrillers. Her latest book Sleep When You’re Dead (set on a remote Scottish island and featuring a sinister Doomsday cult and shady US defence contractors) was a  Financial Times' Best Book of 2022.

Her zeitgeisty novels (under the pen name Jude O'Reilly) are based around the adventures of action hero and ex-assassin, Michael North, who has a bullet in his head. A bullet which means he could die at any second. A situation which means he intends to make every second of the life that he has left count. 

Judith  has also written two memoirs, Wife in the North and A Year of Doing Good

Pooja Poudel

Based in Kathmandu, Pooja Poudel is invested in storytelling, short story writing and the arts. Her stories often include narratives borrowed from memories, realisations and observations that are centred around the experiences of women. She was awarded the first prize in Writing Nepal 2021: A Short Story Contest.

Zaqary Fekete

Zaqary Fekete has worked as a teacher in Hungary, Moldova, Romania, China, and Cambodia. They currently live and work as a writer in Minnesota. They have previously been published in Goats Milk Mag, Shady Grove Literary, Journal of Expressive Writing, Ginosko Literary Journal, SIC Journal, Reflex Fiction, Potato Soup Journal, Cholla Needles, Rabid Oak, Every Day Fiction, and WINK. They enjoy reading, podcasts, and long, slow films.

To read the winning stories, please click the links below:


Previous winners

2022 - On Freedom

Winners (joint): Allan Gaw and Matthew Beven

Honourable Mentions: Ke Shuan Chow, Harry Hext, Tabitha Potts and Susannah Rickards

2021 - Untamed: On Civilisation and Wilderness

Winner: A.J. Bermudez

Second Place: Comfrey Sanders

Third Place: Kerry Andrew

2020 - On Forgiveness and Retribution

Winner: N.G.F. Clarke

Second Place: Maya C. Popa

Third Place: Emma Venables

2019 - Identity

Winner: Ashani Lewis

Second Place: Putul Verma

Third Place: Caroline Zarlengo Sposto

2018 - Childhood

Winner: Mo Ogrodnik

Second Place: Francesco Lo Basso

Third Place: Krystal Song