Stories by: JL Bogenschneider, Joanna Walsh, Lynn Buckle, Maeve O'Lynn, Jane Purdon, Eamon McGuinness, Liam Hogan, Jane Lavelle, Andy Watson, and Martina Ryan.
Stories by: Michael Banks, Clíona Saidléar, Sarah Evans, David Butler, Lynsey May, Andrew Watson, Jamie Kennedy, Joe Lamont, John Paul Davies, and Grace Kelley.
Stories by: Fred Canavan, Hilary Boyd, Jennifer Moore, Rodney Oglesby, Melanie Napthine, Pat Nolan, Dee Roycroft, Tony Devlin, Thomas Nicholson, and Ursula Brunetti.
Stories by: Holly Atkinson, David Butler, Adam Chappell, Sarah Evans, Gráinne Hickey, Mae Leonard, Neasa McHale, Patrick McKeon, Pat Nolan, and Andrew Watson.
The TU Dublin Short Story Competition has been running in conjunction with South Dublin County Libraries' Red line Book Festival since 2016. The TU Dublin Short Story Competition is run by the Library at Technological University Dublin [TU Dublin], in conjunction with South Dublin County Council, in association with the Red Line Book Festival, and is free to enter to anyone over 16 years of age. The ten short listed stories each year are published in ebook and print on demand formats.
Rob is the author of three internationally acclaimed books, all published by Bloomsbury: Threshold, This Is the Ritual, and Here Are the Young Men, which has been adapted as a major film. His writing has appeared in the Guardian, Irish Times, Vice, and many other publications, and his work has been translated into various languages. He teaches Creative Writing at the University of Limerick, and lives the rest of the year in Berlin.
The winning writer will win a cash prize of €500. There is also a cash prize of €250 for second place and €150 for third place. It is the intention of the organisers that the winning and shortlisted entries may be published in an anthology, or other format. Non-prize winning published entries will receive no remuneration.
Shortlisted writers will be invited to read from their short story as part of the 2020 Red Line Book Festival, which runs 12th - 18th October. Details of this will be made known closer to the day, depending on Public Health Advice. Copy
| Year | Winning Author | Winning Short Story Title |
| 2016 | David Butler | Aphasia |
| 2017 | Tony Devlin | Coronary Care |
| 2018 | Clíona Saidléar | The Merry-Go-Round |
| 2019 | Maeve O'Lynn | You Can See That She Is Crying |
The most important thing to do is to make sure that your entry meets the requirements of the competition. Double check the terms, conditions and rules. Entries that do no meet the rules will not even be read!
Make sure you have an attention grabbing start, and a good ending!
Deirdre Sullivan, our judge in 2018 wrote a piece for RTE 'Culture' that year on how to write a great short story, it is available online at:
https://www.rte.ie/culture/2018/0717/979236-how-to-write-a-great-short-story/
There has been a great diversity within our judges over the course of the competition. The judge changes annually and details are included in the announcement of the opening of the competition.
Our inaugural judge was Vanessa Fox O'Loughlin, a literary scout, and founder of The Inkwell Group and of the online national writing resources magazine www.writing.ie.
Vanessa conceived and developed the National Emerging Writer Programme for Dublin City of Literature, and is currently working with WritersWebTV.com bringing free, live, online workshops to writers worldwide.
Vanessa is the current Chair of Irish PEN and the Irish and Eurozone Adviser to the international organisation The Alliance of Independent Authors. Vanessa is also a Director of Kazoo Publishing Services, delivering trade standard publishing solutions to independent authors.
Colm Keegan is a Dublin based poet and writer. He has been shortlisted four times for the Hennessy New Irish Writing Award, for both poetry and fiction and won the All Ireland Poetry Slam in 2010. His books include; “Don't Go There” and “Randomer” .
In 2014 he had residency in the LexIcon in Dun Laoghaire and was the writer in residence for Carlow College St Patricks in 2019.. Colm is a creative writing teacher and co-founder of the Inklinks Project, for young writers. He was a co-founder and board member of Lingo, Ireland’s first Spoken Word festival.
Deirdre Sullivan is an award winning writer for young adults. Her most recent book, Tangleweed and Brine is a collection of Fairy-Tale retellings. She tweets and instagrams @propermiss.
June Caldwell’s acclaimed short story collection Room Little Darker was published in 2017 by New Island and in 2018 by Head of Zeus. Her debut novel Little Town Moone is forthcoming with John Murray. She has been shortlisted for many awards including the writing.ie Short Story of the Year, and is a prize-winner of The Moth International Short Story Prize.
This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
