Aurora Prize for Writing
The Aurora Prize for Writing is now closed.
The 2025 winners have been announced!
The competition will be opening again in October 2026.
The Aurora Prize is a national writing competition, seeking outstanding new writing in short fiction and poetry.
Since 2016, Aurora has provided a platform for writers, offering a prize that is truly national (and international) with its heart in the East Midlands.
Our judges have included some of the region’s leading literary lights, with names such as Joanna Cannon, Casey Bailey, Mahsuda Snaith, Alison Moore, Jon McGregor, Malika Booker, Helen Mort, Debris Stevenson, Shreya Sen-Handley and Georgina Wilding.
We are thrilled to announce that this year’s judges include T.S. Eliot Prize winner Joelle Taylor, reading poetry, and multi-award-winning author Irenosen Okojie, judging prose.
As well as receiving a cash prize, winners receive feedback on a piece of work of their choice from a matched literary agent or editor.
We receive hundreds of entries each year, with the best 25 in each category making it to a published longlist and the best 10 in each category on published shortlists.
The writing competition also offers prizes for second and third places in each category, plus prizes for the best work from the East Midlands region.
Aurora prize 2025
The Winners
Short Fiction Winners
First Place Winner
Millimetres
Charlotte Sinclair
Second Place Winner
The End of Our Tether
Dave Pescod
Third Place Winner
The Woman Who Turned into a Jellyfish
Rozie Kelly
Regional Winner
Provident
Ash Stokes
Poetry Winners
First Place Winner
Uxbridge Moon
Ishita Uppadhayay
Second Place Winner
Lorca was my grandma’s favourite poet
Oli Isaac
Third Place Winner
Self Exam: Finding Your Cervix
Kate MacAlister
Regional Winner
warm weasels @ Amar elHusn
John Gallas
Aurora prize 2025
The Shortlists
Short Fiction Shortlist
Two Late Millennial Men Go Skiing, Harry Dobbs
The Woman Who Turned into a Jellyfish, Rozie Kelly
Millimetres, Charlotte Sinclair
Since the Fish Started Screaming, Sam Dawson
Provident, Ash Stokes
Instant Coffee, Sam Wait
The End of Our Tether, Dave Pescod
In The Drink, Chris Williams
Uncle Dave was a raconteur, Robyn Jefferson
Poetry Shortlist
Achilles leaves me in Norwood Junction, Alison Tanik
Hospice, Michael Socrates Georgiou
warm weasels @ Amar elHusn, John Gallas
The Heart of Halliwell, Ashia Mirza
Uxbridge Moon, Ishita Uppadhayay
Self Exam: Finding Your Cervix, Kate MacAlister
It is a serious thing…, HLR
Lorca was my grandma’s favourite poet, Oli Isaac
1982-2002, Rich Goodson
My Wife Was Not Winter, Ivy Raff
Aurora prize 2025
The Longlists
Short Fiction Longlist
Two Late Millennial Men Go Skiing, Harry Dobbs
All of Them, Chris Neilan
Curiosity’s Cat, Danielle Smith
Callback, Anne Frost
The Woman Who Turned into a Jellyfish, Rozie Kelly
The Bog Lap, Lui Sit
Millimetres, Charlotte Sinclair
The Caregiver, Sam Naylor
Since the Fish Started Screaming, Sam Dawson
Muddy, Sheila Bwakya
Gabriel, Pauline Hughes
Provident, Ash Stokes
Company, Holly Catton
Instant Coffee, Sam Wait
The End of Our Tether, Dave Pescod
Tan and Brown, MJ Lehr
Burned, Jo Bardsley
Someone with Something to Say, Lucy Grace
Conkers, Jane Batkin
Uncle Dave Was a Raconteur, Robyn Jefferson
In The Drink, Chris Williams
The Abbey Lawn, Georgia Boon
Life Drawing, Mary Byrne
Poetry Longlist
Miss Gaia Theory, Tom Nutting
Green Strawberries, Mary Mulholland
Achilles leaves me in Norwood Junction, Alison Tanik
Hospice, Michael Socrates Georgiou
Smaller Heavens, Dawn McGuire
Lesbian Line Closing Day (1999), Amy L. King
How Not to Bath a Cat, Lauren Colley
Flapping Along the Bottom of the Sky, Paul McMahon
warm weasels @ Amar elHusn, John Gallas
Disassembling Their Conservatory, Eliza Mood
The Heart of Halliwell, Ashia Mirza
Uxbridge Moon, Ishita Uppadhayay
Another Bracelet, Melissa Emmett
The Fabled Draw of Blood, Jonathan Greenhause
A Breakup, Detached, Jonathan Greenhause
Self Exam: Finding Your Cervix, Kate MacAlister
It is a serious thing…, HLR
The Trouble Is, HLR
Lorca was my grandma’s favourite poet, Oli Isaac
1982-2002, Richard Goodson
My Wife Was Not Winter, Ivy Raff
Recognizable, Ivy Raff
Post-Coital, Tash Walker
Lunchtime on Free School Meals, Fae Wolfe
Aurora prize 2025
The Prizes
The winners of the writing competition, in each category, will receive a cash prize of £500, feedback on a piece of work of their choice from a leading literary agent (or Editor as appropriate) and a years free membership to the Society of Authors, which includes access to advice and resources on all aspects of the business of writing.
Winners will also receive a session with Society of Authors staff, including an introduction to how the Society can support them in their careers as professional authors and covering essential advice on copyright, payment terms and contracts.
Second Prize £150 cash.
Third Prize A ticket to the 2027 Writers’ Conference, hosted by Writing East Midlands.
As a champion of writers from the East Midlands, we will also offer a regional prize of £100 to the best work in each category from the region.
In the weeks leading up to the Aurora Prize Awards Ceremony (details TBC) we will also be publishing a longlist of 25 in each category and a shortlist of 10 in each category on our website. The shortlist of 10 will also receive a 20% discount code for one year’s membership with the Society of Authors.
The submission fee is £9 for a first entry and £7 for each additional entry.
This is a national writing competition open to everyone. International entries are also welcome.
Aurora prize 2025
The 2025 Judges
IRENOSEN OKOJIE is a Nigerian British author whose work pushes the boundaries of form, language and ideas. Her novel, Butterfly Fish, and short story collections, Speak Gigantular and Nudibranch, have won and been nominated for multiple awards. She won the 2020 AKO Caine Prize for her short story Grace Jones.
Her journalism has been featured in The New York Times, the Observer, the Guardian and the Huffington Post. She is a Contributing Editor for The White Review as well as And Other Stories. She co-presented the BBC’s Novels That Shaped Our World podcast Turn Up for The Books. Her work has been optioned for the screen.
She has also judged various literary prizes including the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Gordon Burn Prize, the BBC National Short Story Award and the Dublin Literary Award. She was a judge for the 2023 Women’s Prize for Fiction. Formerly the Vice Chair of the Royal Society of Literature, she was named a visionary artist in Red Magazine’s The Next 25 visionaries to watch and awarded an MBE For Services to Literature in 2021.
She is the director and founder of Black to the Future festival. Her new novel Curandera is published by Dialogue Books.
JOELLE TAYLOR is the author of 4 collections of poetry. Her most recent collection C+NTO & Othered Poems won the 2021 T.S Eliot Prize, and the 2022 Polari Book Prize for LGBT authors. C+NTO is currently being adapted for theatre with a view to touring.
She is a co-curator and host of Out-Spoken Live at the Southbank Centre, and tours her work nationally and internationally in a diverse range of venues, from Australia to Brazil. She is also a Poetry Fellow of University of East Anglia and the curator of the Koestler Awards 2023.
She has judged several poetry and literary prizes including Jerwood Fellowship, the Forward Prize, and the Ondaatje Prize. Her novel of interconnecting stories The Night Alphabet was published by Riverrun in Spring of 2024 and was named Guardian Book of the Month.
She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and the 2022 Saboteur Spoken Word Artist of the Year. She was recently honoured with a DIVA Award for Excellence and was also included in the Independent’s 2024 Pride Power list.
Find out more about Joelle here.
THE AURORA PRIZE FOR WRITING
ARCHIVE & SHOWCASE
FIND OUT ABOUT OUR WRITING COMPETITION WINNERS FROM PREVIOUS YEARS AND READ THEIR ENTRIES BY CLICKING THE LINK BELOW.
The Society of Authors is the UK trade union for more than 11,500 writers, scriptwriters, illustrators and literary translators, at all stages of their careers. We’ve been advising individuals and speaking out for the profession since 1884. For more information and to sign up, visit www.societyofauthors.org