RTÉ Short Story competition opens for entries at Radio 1

The RTÉ Short Story Competition 2022, run on Radio 1 in honour of Francis MacManus, is now open for entries.

Writers have until Friday 13th May to submit their short story to the competition.

This year’s entries will be judged by writers Lisa McInerney, Ferdia McAnna and Éilis Ní Dhuibhne.

The free to enter competition recognises and rewards the best new Irish fiction writing for radio and attracts thousands of entries every year.

This year, the top prize has increased to €5,000, while the second and third placed writers will receive €4,000 and €3,000 respectively. A further seven runners-up will receive €250 each.

A shortlist of ten stories will be announced in September, and the top prize-winners will be announced on an Arena special programme later in the autumn.

All 10 shortlisted stories will be published on rte.ie/culture and broadcast in a season of new writing on RTÉ Radio 1 in the autumn. You can listen to and read last year’s 10 shortlisted stories here.

All shortlisted stories are produced for radio and voiced by some of Ireland’s most talented actors. In recent years these have included Cathy Belton, Eamon Morrissey, Ali White, Ingrid Craigie, Janet Moran, Kathy Rose O’Brien, Emmet Kirwan and Andrew Bennett.

Series producer Sarah Binchy says: “At 35, the competition now happily inhabits both the digital and the analogue world – you can enter online or by post, and we podcast and publish all the shortlisted stories online, as well as broadcasting them on RTÉ Radio 1.

“But it continues to do what our colleagues who set it up in 1986 in honour of Francis MacManus intended: to discover and share some of the best new Irish fiction writing for radio each year. I’d encourage anyone who’s serious about their writing to enter, and I’m looking forward to what this year’s writers have in store for us.”

For competition rules, information on how to enter, and to read and listen to past winning stories, see this site.