This year’s competition is for works of fiction up to 1888 words – a reference to the year of Mansfield’s birth. All submissions must follow the theme, however loosely, of ‘haunted’.
You can write your work in any form – short story or hybrid or another imaginative form, but please note this is not a competition for flash fiction (go here to submit your flash to the National Flash Fiction Day competition).
Submissions need not be directly related to Katherine Mansfield. We encourage experimentation and outside-the-box thinking! Send your stories of quiet, strange, beautiful, oddball or wild hauntings – we look forward!
Only one entry per person
Entry fee: $10 per story
Prizes
$500 for first prize, proudly sponsored by Dunedin UNESCO City of Literature
Book bundles in the value of $150 and $100 for the second and third prizes, respectively.
All shortlisted stories will be published online. Winners will be invited to read at the KM celebration on Sunday, October 13, 2024, in the Katherine Mansfield House, Wellington.
Timetable for the 2024 competition
- June 1: submissions open
- July 31: submissions close
- Early September: shortlist announced
- October 13: prize-giving in Wellington
Judges
The 2024 judges are Michelle Elvy and Harry Ricketts.
Michelle Elvy is a writer, editor and creative writing teacher in Ōtepoti Dunedin. Her books include the everrumble (2019) and the other side of better (2021). Her anthology editing work includes, most recently, A Kind of Shelter: Whakaruru-taha (with Witi Ihimaera; MUP 2023), Breach of All Size: Small stories on Ulysses, love and Venice (with Marco Sonzogni; The Cuba Press 2022) and Ko Aotearoa Tātou | We Are New Zealand (with Paula Morris and James Norcliffe; OUP 2020). Forthcoming are Te Moana Reo | The Language Ocean, edited with Vaughan Rapatahana (The Cuba Press 2024), and a dual-language collection of small stories in te reo Māori and English, edited with Kiri Piahana-Wong (MUP 2025). In 2024, she is judging the international Fish Flash Fiction Prize and the Bath Flash Fiction Award.
Born in London, Harry Ricketts moved to Aotearoa New Zealand in 1981. He is a poet, reviewer, editor, and retired academic. His more than 30 books include 12 collections of poems – most recently, Selected Poems (Victoria University Press, 2021); literary biographies – The Unforgiving Minute: A Life of Rudyard Kipling (Chatto & Windus, 1999) and Strange Meetings: The Poets of the Great War (Chatto & Windus, 2010); several anthologies of New Zealand poetry; personal essays; and (co-written with Paula Green) 99 Ways into New Zealand Poetry (Vintage, 2010). His memoir, First Things, will appear from Te Herenga Waka Press in May. For the last three years, he has been a co-judge of the Radio New Zealand Short Story competition.
HOW TO ENTER
PAYMENT:
- Make your online payment here: ANZ / ATB |ITK / Acct No. 06-0350-0849733-00 – include ‘Surname, KM 2024 submission’ as a reference
- Once you’ve transferred your entry fee, send proof of payment (a phone capture or screen shot will do – see the link provided) along with your story to info@atthebay.org. Attn: Rachel Smith, competition secretary
- You will receive confirmation of your entry within 72 hours. If you do not hear from us, please email again.
- All entries must be received electronically. If you are not online and wish to submit, please have a friend submit via email.
- 2024 submission fee: $10.00 per story (1 story per entrant)
