Sarah Hall wins BBC National Short Story Award

Sarah Hall has won the £15,000 BBC National Short Story Award with her story "Mrs Fox".

The win was announced this evening on BBC Radio 4's "Front Row."

"Mrs Fox" revolves around a woman who turns into a fox, to the confusion and dismay of her husband. Chair of the judges Mariella Frostrup said: "From the outset of our deliberations we were all seduced by our winning story. The poetic use of language, the dexterity and originality of the prose made Sarah Hall's 'Mrs Fox' utterly unique."

Sarah Hall, whose novels and short story collection are published by Faber, has been a Granta Best of Young British Novelists selection, been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Commonwealth Writers Prize, and longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction.

Runner-up Lucy Wood, author of short story collection Diving Belles (Bloomsbury) won £3,000 for her story "Notes From the House Spirits", while the other shortlisted authors, Lionel Shriver, Lisa Blower and Lavinia Greenlaw, each received £500.

This is the eighth year of the award, which is open to published authors who are resident in the UK or British nationals. The judges for this year's award were Frostrup, authors Deborah Moggach, Mohsin Hamid, Peter Hobbs and BBC radio's editor of readings Di Speirs.

Gwyneth Williams, controller of BBC Radio 4, where all the shortlisted stories were read in September, said: "At Radio 4 we broadcast more short stories than any other broadcaster anywhere in the world. We are proud of that fact; we love our stories and plan to carry on bringing them to listeners."

The award is managed by the BBC in partnership with Booktrust. The stories will be released in a collection published by Comma Press, and an audio release of the readings is available through AudioGo.