LONDON, England — Jamaican environmental activist and author Diana McCaulay has been selected for the international panel of judges for the 10th Commonwealth Short Story Prize (2021). 

McCaulay, who won the Caribbean Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 2012 for her story The Dolphin Catchers, will focus on entries from the region.

The founder and chair of Jamaica Environment Trust has published four novels – Dog-Heart, Huracan, Gone to Drift and White Liver Gal. Her forthcoming fifth novel, Daylight Come, is to be published by Peepal Tree Press this month. 

McCaulay’s short fiction and non-fiction have appeared in numerous magazines and journals, including Granta, Jamaica Journal, Adda Stories, Eleven Eleven, SCOOP the magazine, and the Griffith Review. She won the Hollick Arvon Prize for non-fiction in 2014 for her work-in-progress, a creative non-fiction book entitled Loving Jamaica. 

Her fellow judges, drawn from the other regions of the Commonwealth, are Nigerian author A Igoni Barrett (Africa), Bangladeshi writer and editor Khademul Islam (Asia), British poet and fiction writer Keith Jarrett (Canada and Europe), and essayist and fiction writer Tina Makereti (Pacific). The panel will be chaired by South African novelist and critic Zoë Wicomb. 

The Commonwealth Short Story Prize is accepting entries until November 1, 2020. 

The competition is administered by the Commonwealth Foundation, through its cultural initiative Commonwealth Writers. The prize is open to citizens of all Commonwealth countries and is free to enter. It is awarded for the best piece of unpublished short fiction (2,000–5,000 words). The five regional winners receive £2,500 and the overall winner receives £5,000.

In addition to English, submissions are accepted in the original Bengali, Chinese, French, Greek, Kiswahili, Malay, Portuguese, Samoan, Tamil, and Turkish. Stories that have been translated into English from any language are also accepted and the translator of any story that wins (regional or overall) also receives prize money.

The five regional winning stories are published online by the literary magazine Granta. The Commonwealth Foundation says the prize, now in its 10th year, has a growing reputation for discovering and elevating new talent; and that past winners have gone on to win other literary competitions and secure book deals.

 Those interested in applying can find out more about eligibility, rules, and the submission process at www.commonwealthwriters.org/cssp-2021/.