Cheshire Prize for Literature

Cheshire Prize for Literature 2024/25

The 2024/25 Prize has no theme. Entrants can write about anything that inspires them.

There are five categories, short stories, poetry, children's literature, scriptwriting and new for this year, Flash fiction.

There are three age groups: primary, secondary and over 18's.

Age range	Poetry	Short stories	Scriptwriting	Children’s Literature	Flash Fiction
Primary (4-11)	Enter	Enter	X	X	X
Secondary (11-17)	Enter	Enter	X	X	X
18 +	Enter	Enter	Enter	Enter	Enter

Entrants must live or have lived, work or have worked, studied or have studied in Cheshire, Wirral, Warrington or Halton.

For full details please see terms and conditions. 

Winners will be announced at our awards evening in the summer. All entrants will be invited to attend.

ENTER HERE 

Any queries about the competition should be emailed to cheshireprize@chester.ac.uk or phone 01244 511344.

History of the Prize

In 2003, the then High Sheriff of Cheshire approached the University of Chester to establish and run a Cheshire Prize for Literature. Since then, it has grown to become one of the foremost competitions in the area, encouraging the literary talents of new and existing writers. 

Until 2018 year it was operating on a triennial cycle of short stories, poetry and children’s literature, and the prize was open to adults with a connection to Cheshire.  It is one of the few free-to-enter literary competitions and offers a cash prize for the winners but also the opportunity for the best entries from the previous year to be published by the University of Chester Press in an anthology. 

In 2019 we worked with Sir Phil Redmond to introduce a scriptwriting prize. In 2020 we introduced categories for children as we wanted to encourage creative writing in all ages. In this year’s competition there are four categories, short stories, poetry, children's literature and scriptwriting.