Smith to judge first Weatherglass Books Novella Award

Ali Smith is to judge the inaugural Weatherglass Books Novella Award, which celebrates the short form genre and spotlights both new and established writers. 

The independent press is launching the £1,000 award in the new year and is encouraging writers to submit their manuscripts for the opportunity to be published in 2024. 

Entries will be read by the Weatherglass editorial team, and the shortlist will then be judged by Smith. All entries will be read blind, including the shortlist. An advance of £1,000 will be paid to the winning author, and their novella will be published in autumn 2024. The winner will be announced before 31st March 2024. 

"We feel quite strongly that the novella is a form for our times," the publisher said. "Yes, our attention spans are apparently getting shorter, and TV and films have trained us to expect narratives that evolve quickly and put the protagonists under a lot of pressure, so shorter fiction fits the pattern.

"But we think there’s maybe something a little more profound going on: the increasingly chaotic world is paradoxically too complex for a novel to take on. A novella — with its tight focus, with its needing to come to an end, with its singular atmosphere — is the ideal form for glimpsing something essential about the world and ourselves."

More details about the submission process can be found on the Weatherglass website.