BBC National Short Story Award

Colwill Brown's powerful and heart-breaking story is about Shaz, a teenager who is more vulnerable than she realises. A brutal incident with two boys has a lasting impact, leaving her with a powerful sense of shame, and curtailing her life chances. The reader is Sophie McShera. Colwill Brown is the author of the novel We Pretty Pieces of Flesh published in 2025. Her work has appeared in Granta, Prairie Schooner, and other publications, and she has received scholarships and awards from the Tin House Summer Workshop, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Hedgebrook, Ragdale, the Anderson Center, GrubStreet Center for Creative Writing, and elsewhere. The annual BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University marks its twentieth anniversary in 2025 with a shortlist of five short stories by established and newer writers to the form. The five outstanding stories explore relationships, community and place against a backdrop of a world in crisis. For two decades this award has celebrated writers who are the UK’s finest exponents of the form.  James Lasdun secured the inaugural Award in 2006 for ‘An Anxious Man’. In 2012 when the Award expanded internationally for one year, Miroslav Penkov was victorious for his story, ‘East of the West’. Last year, the Award was won by Ross Raisin for ‘Ghost Kitchen’, a tense, cinematic story narrated by a bicycle courier and inspired by the gig economy and the ‘dark kitchens’ of the restaurant industry. In its 20-year history, Sarah Hall, K J Orr, Naomi Wood, Jonathan Buckley, Julian Gough, Clare Wigfall, Cynan Jones, Lucy Caldwell, Ingrid Persaud, Saba Sams and David Constantine have also carried off the Award with shortlisted authors including Zadie Smith, Jackie Kay, William Trevor, Rose Tremain, Caleb Azumah Nelson, Naomi Alderman, Kamila Shamsie, K Patrick and Jacqueline Crooks. This year’s judging panel was chaired by Di Speirs who has sat on every judging panel since the Award’s inception and is joined by the very first chair of judges, William Boyd as well as former winners and shortlisted writers Lucy Caldwell, Ross Raisin and Kamila Shamsie. In a time when literary awards come and go, and can struggle for funding and airtime, the BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University continues to be a cause for joy From 15th to 18th September four of the shortlisted stories can be heard at 3.30 each afternoon with the fifth story in contention for the award broadcasting on Friday, 19th September, at 11.30pm. The winner of the 20th BBC National Short Story Award will be announced live on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row on Tuesday 30th September 2025.If you have been a victim of child or adult sexual abuse or violence, details of help and support are available at bbc.co.uk/actionline.Produced by Elizabeth Allard.

Edward Hogan's tender and humorous story Little Green Man is in contention for the 2025 BBC National Short Story Award. Dorothy Atkinson reads this warm portrait of a heartbroken gardener forced into partnership with a summer temp as they tend to the green spaces of Derby. Edward Hogan has an MA in creative writing from the University of East Anglia. From Derby, he is the author of five novels include Blackmoor (2008), which won the Desmond Elliot Prize and the highly-acclaimed The Electric (2020). His recent short stories have won the Dinesh Allirajah Prize, the Galley Beggar Press Prize, and have been published in the Best British Short Stories series. He works for the Open University as a Lecturer in Creative Writing. The 2025 BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University (BBC NSSA) shortlist was announced on Thursday 11 September 2025 live on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row, as the prestigious award celebrates its 20th anniversary. The shortlist, featuring multi-award winning writers and ‘astonishing’ new talent, was praised for its ‘intimate,’ ‘elegant’ and ’nuanced’ explorations of relationships, community and the specificities of place set against a world in crisis.Selected by a panel of previous winners and returning judges from across the Award’s 20-year history, the five-strong shortlist are: Costa Book of the Year 2011 and Booker Prize 2025 longlisted author Andrew Miller; multi-award winning Irish writer Caoilinn Hughes, Desmond Elliott Prize winning novelist and short story specialist Edward Hogan; and new names, British-Lebanese author Emily Abdeni-Holman, and Colwill Brown whose debut novel was published this year.Set in locations from Derbyshire and Doncaster to Jerusalem and County Kildare, the stories explore ‘self-contained’ worlds often inspired by personal memories and experiences, from the complexities of marriage, to the mysteries of survival in crisis; from newly formed inter-generational bonds, to the quiet tension between people and place, each reveals the short story’s ‘unparalleled’ power to reflect ‘the times we are living through.’For two decades this award has celebrated writers who are the UK’s finest exponents of the form.  James Lasdun secured the inaugural Award in 2006 for ‘An Anxious Man’. In 2012 when the Award expanded internationally for one year, Miroslav Penkov was victorious for his story, ‘East of the West’. Last year, the Award was won by Ross Raisin for ‘Ghost Kitchen’, a tense, cinematic story narrated by a bicycle courier and inspired by the gig economy and the ‘dark kitchens’ of the restaurant industry.In its 20-year history, Sarah Hall, K J Orr, Naomi Wood, Jonathan Buckley, Julian Gough, Clare Wigfall, Cynan Jones, Lucy Caldwell, Ingrid Persaud, Saba Sams and David Constantine have also carried off the Award with shortlisted authors including Zadie Smith, Jackie Kay, William Trevor, Rose Tremain, Caleb Azumah Nelson, Naomi Alderman, Kamila Shamsie, K Patrick and Jacqueline Crooks.This year’s judging panel was chaired by Di Speirs who has sat on every judging panel since the Award’s inception and is joined by the very first chair of judges, William Boyd as well as former winners and shortlisted writers Lucy Caldwell, Ross Raisin and Kamila Shamsie.In a time when literary awards come and go, and can struggle for funding and airtime, the BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University continues to be a cause for joy.From 15th to 18th September four of the shortlisted stories can be heard at 3.30 each afternoon with the fifth story in contention for the award broadcasting on Friday, 19th September, at 11.30pm. The winner of the 20th BBC National Short Story Award will be announced live on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row on Tuesday 30th September 2025.Produced by Eilidh McCreadie

Novelist and short story writer Caoilinn Hughes has been shortlisted for the 2025 BBC National Short Story Award for Two Hands, a ‘funny’ and ‘accomplished’ story, inspired by the author’s experience of a camper van crash on a Spanish motorway with her partner. The story, written to create a new set of associations around this difficult experience, follows a couple as they take a driving lesson with an elderly instructor in a quest to regain confidence after a car accident in Italy. Their move back to Ireland has skewed the dynamics of their relationship, and the story artfully explores the complexities and tensions within a marriage, with humour and poignancy. Caoilinn Hughes is an award-winning author and short story writer from Ireland. Her novels include The Wild Laughter (2020) which won the RSL’s Encore Award and most recently, The Alternatives (2024.) Her short stories have won the Irish Book Awards' Story of the Year, The Moth Short Story Prize, and an O. Henry Prize. She was recently Oscar Wilde Writer Fellow at Trinity College Dublin and a Cullman Center Fellow at New York Public Library. Caoilinn Hughes grew up in Galway and now lives in London.The 2025 BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University (BBC NSSA) shortlist was announced on Thursday 11 September 2025 live on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row, as the prestigious award celebrates its 20th anniversary. The shortlist, featuring multi-award winning writers and ‘astonishing’ new talent, was praised for its ‘intimate,’ ‘elegant’ and ’nuanced’ explorations of relationships, community and the specificities of place set against a world in crisis.Selected by a panel of previous winners and returning judges from across the Award’s 20-year history, the five-strong shortlist are: Costa Book of the Year 2011 and Booker Prize 2025 longlisted author Andrew Miller; multi-award winning Irish writer Caoilinn Hughes, Desmond Elliott Prize winning novelist and short story specialist Edward Hogan; and new names, British-Lebanese author Emily Abdeni-Holman, and Colwill Brown whose debut novel was published this year.Set in locations from Derbyshire and Doncaster to Jerusalem and County Kildare, the stories explore ‘self-contained’ worlds often inspired by personal memories and experiences, from the complexities of marriage, to the mysteries of survival in crisis; from newly formed inter-generational bonds, to the quiet tension between people and place, each reveals the short story’s ‘unparalleled’ power to reflect ‘the times we are living through.’For two decades this award has celebrated writers who are the UK’s finest exponents of the form.  James Lasdun secured the inaugural Award in 2006 for ‘An Anxious Man’. In 2012 when the Award expanded internationally for one year, Miroslav Penkov was victorious for his story, ‘East of the West’. Last year, the Award was won by Ross Raisin for ‘Ghost Kitchen’, a tense, cinematic story narrated by a bicycle courier and inspired by the gig economy and the ‘dark kitchens’ of the restaurant industry.In its 20-year history, Sarah Hall, K J Orr, Naomi Wood, Jonathan Buckley, Julian Gough, Clare Wigfall, Cynan Jones, Lucy Caldwell, Ingrid Persaud, Saba Sams and David Constantine have also carried off the Award with shortlisted authors including Zadie Smith, Jackie Kay, William Trevor, Rose Tremain, Caleb Azumah Nelson, Naomi Alderman, Kamila Shamsie, K Patrick and Jacqueline Crooks.This year’s judging panel was chaired by Di Speirs who has sat on every judging panel since the Award’s inception and is joined by the very first chair of judges, William Boyd as well as former winners and shortlisted writers Lucy Caldwell, Ross Raisin and Kamila Shamsie.In a time when literary awards come and go, and can struggle for funding and airtime, the BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University continues to be a cause for joyFrom 15th to 18th September four of the shortlisted stories can be heard at 3.30 each afternoon with the fifth story in contention for the award broadcasting on Friday, 19th September, at 11.30pm. The winner of the 20th BBC National Short Story Award will be announced live on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row on Tuesday 30th September 2025.Produced by Michael Shannon

Emily Abdeni-Holman's lyrical story is up for the 2025 BBC National Short Story Award. Centred around a young woman recently arrived in Jerusalem this understated story explores the relationship between people and place, power and vulnerability in a locale where history and belonging are so tangibly fraught. The reader is Isabelle Farah.Emily Abdeni-Holman is a writer and critic. Her first book, Body Tectonic (Broken Sleep Books, 2024), on Lebanon’s socioeconomic crisis, is an experiment in exploring structural disaster through poetry. The 2025 BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University (BBC NSSA) shortlist was announced on Thursday 11 September 2025 live on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row, as the prestigious award celebrates its 20th anniversary. The shortlist, featuring multi-award winning writers and ‘astonishing’ new talent, was praised for its ‘intimate,’ ‘elegant’ and ’nuanced’ explorations of relationships, community and the specificities of place set against a world in crisis.Selected by a panel of previous winners and returning judges from across the Award’s 20-year history, the five-strong shortlist are: Costa Book of the Year 2011 and Booker Prize 2025 longlisted author Andrew Miller; multi-award winning Irish writer Caoilinn Hughes, Desmond Elliott Prize winning novelist and short story specialist Edward Hogan; and new names, British-Lebanese author Emily Abdeni-Holman, and Colwill Brown whose debut novel was published this year. Set in locations from Derbyshire and Doncaster to Jerusalem and County Kildare, the stories explore ‘self-contained’ worlds often inspired by personal memories and experiences, from the complexities of marriage, to the mysteries of survival in crisis; from newly formed inter-generational bonds, to the quiet tension between people and place, each reveals the short story’s ‘unparalleled’ power to reflect ‘the times we are living through.’ For two decades this award has celebrated writers who are the UK’s finest exponents of the form.  James Lasdun secured the inaugural Award in 2006 for ‘An Anxious Man’. In 2012 when the Award expanded internationally for one year, Miroslav Penkov was victorious for his story, ‘East of the West’. Last year, the Award was won by Ross Raisin for ‘Ghost Kitchen’, a tense, cinematic story narrated by a bicycle courier and inspired by the gig economy and the ‘dark kitchens’ of the restaurant industry.In its 20-year history, Sarah Hall, K J Orr, Naomi Wood, Jonathan Buckley, Julian Gough, Clare Wigfall, Cynan Jones, Lucy Caldwell, Ingrid Persaud, Saba Sams and David Constantine have also carried off the Award with shortlisted authors including Zadie Smith, Jackie Kay, William Trevor, Rose Tremain, Caleb Azumah Nelson, Naomi Alderman, Kamila Shamsie, K Patrick and Jacqueline Crooks.This year’s judging panel was chaired by Di Speirs who has sat on every judging panel since the Award’s inception and is joined by the very first chair of judges, William Boyd as well as former winners and shortlisted writers Lucy Caldwell, Ross Raisin and Kamila Shamsie.In a time when literary awards come and go, and can struggle for funding and airtime, the BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University continues to be a cause for joyFrom 15th to 18th September four of the shortlisted stories can be heard at 3.30 each afternoon with the fifth story in contention for the award broadcasting on Saturday, 20th September, at 11.30pm. The winner of the 20th BBC National Short Story Award will be announced live on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row on Tuesday 30th September 2025.Reader by Isabelle Farah Produced by Justine Willett Abridged by Emily Abdeni-Holman and Justine Willett

Rain: a history is the first story in contention for the 2025 BBC National Short Story Award. Toby Jones reads this tender and vivid story about a father who, along with his small rural community, is forced to confront a tragedy. The unseasonably warm and wet weather mirrors the unease which permeates everything.The judges praised Miller’s ‘wonderful’, ‘precise’ and ‘elliptical’ writing which examines ‘the mystery of how we survive when our old structures of faith are eroded,’ and ends with a small, but hopeful act of connection.Andrew Miller is the author of ten novels, including most recently The Land in Winter, which won the Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction and is longlisted for the Booker Prize 2025. Andrew is an elected fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His novels have been awarded The James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the International IMPAC and the Costa Book of the Year amongst others. The 2025 BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University (BBC NSSA) shortlist was announced on Thursday 11 September 2025 live on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row, as the prestigious award celebrates its 20th anniversary. The shortlist, featuring multi-award winning writers and ‘astonishing’ new talent, was praised for its ‘intimate,’ ‘elegant’ and ’nuanced’ explorations of relationships, community and the specificities of place set against a world in crisis.Selected by a panel of previous winners and returning judges from across the Award’s 20-year history, the five-strong shortlist are: Costa Book of the Year 2011 and Booker Prize 2025 longlisted author Andrew Miller; multi-award winning Irish writer Caoilinn Hughes, Desmond Elliott Prize winning novelist and short story specialist Edward Hogan; and new names, British-Lebanese author Emily Abdeni-Holman, and Colwill Brown whose debut novel was published this year. Set in locations from Derbyshire and Doncaster to Jerusalem and County Kildare, the stories explore ‘self-contained’ worlds often inspired by personal memories and experiences, from the complexities of marriage, to the mysteries of survival in crisis; from newly formed inter-generational bonds, to the quiet tension between people and place, each reveals the short story’s ‘unparalleled’ power to reflect ‘the times we are living through.’ For two decades this award has celebrated writers who are the UK’s finest exponents of the form.  James Lasdun secured the inaugural Award in 2006 for ‘An Anxious Man’. In 2012 when the Award expanded internationally for one year, Miroslav Penkov was victorious for his story, ‘East of the West’. Last year, the Award was won by Ross Raisin for ‘Ghost Kitchen’, a tense, cinematic story narrated by a bicycle courier and inspired by the gig economy and the ‘dark kitchens’ of the restaurant industry.In its 20-year history, Sarah Hall, K J Orr, Naomi Wood, Jonathan Buckley, Julian Gough, Clare Wigfall, Cynan Jones, Lucy Caldwell, Ingrid Persaud, Saba Sams and David Constantine have also carried off the Award with shortlisted authors including Zadie Smith, Jackie Kay, William Trevor, Rose Tremain, Caleb Azumah Nelson, Naomi Alderman, Kamila Shamsie, K Patrick and Jacqueline Crooks.This year’s judging panel was chaired by Di Speirs who has sat on every judging panel since the Award’s inception and is joined by the very first chair of judges, William Boyd as well as former winners and shortlisted writers Lucy Caldwell, Ross Raisin and Kamila Shamsie.In a time when literary awards come and go, and can struggle for funding and airtime, the BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University continues to be a cause for joyFrom 15th to 18th September four of the shortlisted stories can be heard at 3.30 each afternoon with the fifth story in contention for the award broadcasting on Friday, 19th September, at 11.30pm. The winner of the 20th BBC National Short Story Award will be announced live on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row on Tuesday 30th September 2025.Produced by Elizabeth Allard