The Royal Society of Literature is delighted to announce the winner of the V.S. Pritchett Short Story Prize. The prize, worth £1,000, is an annual award for unpublished short stories between 2,000 to 4,000 words in length.
From the shortlist of seven writers announced last week, this year’s judges Julia Armfield, Fred D’Aguiar and Juliet Jacques selected Tom Vowler’s story ‘Voyagers’. As well as the prize money, Tom wins publication of his story in Prospect magazine online and in the RSL’s Review. You can read ‘Voyagers’ in Prospect magazine here.
Tom was presented with the prize at the ALCS Annual Awards ceremony in London on 22 February. This is the first time the prize has been presented as part of the ALCS Awards.
Upon winning, Tom said: “The short story is such a marginalised form.. prizes like this bring it into the spotlight and it’s the most exciting of literary forms for me.”
Julia Armfield: “‘Voyagers’ is clean and balanced, combining science and romance with flair and intelligence.”
Fred D’Aguiar: “This is storytelling with real intrigue and knowingness that makes compelling reading. The character is in the prose voice rather than descriptive fleshing-out, with the merest biographical skeleton to hang action and events onto. There are several gems, the best of which is: ‘the brain is the only organ to have named itself.’”
Juliet Jacques: “‘Voyagers’ is beautifully crafted, a sublime mix of romantic tension and studies of the cosmos.”
Tom Vowler is an award-winning author living in the UK. A university lecturer with a PhD in creative writing, his work has featured on BBC radio and been translated into multiple languages. His forthcoming sixth book is a collection of flash fiction, and he’s also currently working on a memoir.
The RSL is grateful to the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) for supporting this Prize for over a decade. The RSL is also grateful to Prospect for publishing the winning story online.