It’s an exciting day in the writing world, as The BBC National Short Story Award and BBC Young Writers’ Award opened submissions for 2019, with broadcaster Nikki Bedi chairing next year’s judging panel. Nikki’s counterpart on the BBC Young Writers’ Award (YWA) is BBC Radio 1 presenter Katie Thistleton, who will chair the judging panel for the teenage award as it opens for submissions for the fifth year.
Bedi and Thistleton will be joined by a group of award-winning writers and artists on their respective panels. For the BBC National Short Story Award: novelist Richard Beard, short story writer Daisy Johnson, screenwriter Cynan Jones, and returning judge, Di Speirs.
For the BBC Young Writers’ Award, Thistleton will lead a brilliant panel in the form of Anthony Cartwright, Patrice Lawrence, and Kiran Millwood Hargrave.
NSSA and YWA submissions open online at www.bbc.co.uk/nssa and www.bbc.co.uk/ywa from 9am (GMT) 13th December 2018. The deadline for entries for the BBC National Short Story Award is 9am (GMT) Monday 11th March 2019. The deadline for receipt of entries for the BBC Young Writers’ Award with First Story and Cambridge University is 9am (GMT) Monday 25th March 2019.
I’m thrilled to have been asked to be an Ambassador for the BBC YWA again this year, so I’ll be bringing you all the latest updates as the competition progresses throughout the year.
Do you write fiction? Have you ever entered a story-writing competition?
coffeeinonehandbookintheother.wordpress.com 
This is pretty awesome! Looking forward to the coverage!