Virago and Stylist launch gothic short story competition

Virago and Stylist magazine have teamed up to launch a short story competition in honour of "Queen of the short story" Daphne du Maurier.

The competition invites unpublished "gothic" fiction, no longer than 2,000 words, in tribute to du Maurier, whose collections The Birds, The Breaking Point, The Doll and The Rendezvous Virago Modern Classics is publishing in October.

Entries will be judged by a panel comprising: crime writer Stella Duffy, Stylist’s contributing literary editor Francesca Brown, Virago publisher Lennie Goodings and editorial director of Virago Modern Classics, Donna Coonan.

Coonan, publisher of Virago Modern Classics, said: "Daphne du Maurier is an iconic classic writer who is justly famous for her novels, among them Rebecca and Jamaica Inn, but fewer people know that she was also a master of the short story, and that her haunting tales were the inspiration for Alfred Hitchcock’s "The Birds" and Nicolas Roeg’s "Don’t Look Now". In October, the month of Halloween, we will reissue four of her chilling short-story collections. In celebration of this wonderful writer we have teamed up with Stylist magazine to launch a short-story competition with an incredible prize."

The winner of the competition will see their entry published in Stylist and on virago.co.uk, and receive a six-day writing course of their choice with creative writing charity Arvon, which runs writing courses and retreats in Devon, Shropshire and Yorkshire. They will also win copies of Virago Modern Classics' newly published du Maurier works.

The deadline for submissions - to be emailed to shortstorycompetition@stylist.co.uk or posted direct to Stylist magazine - is 14th September 2016. The winner and runners up with be announced on 19th October 2016.