What is the World's Richest Short Story Competition?

Would you like to win a short story competition and win the largest prize for it?

If entering the Munster Literature Short story competition is your thing, therefore you had better look out for next year's event. The award has been running since 2005.

This year's prizewinner is about to be announced and the lucky winner will be all the better for 35,000 euro. Who said the economy in Ireland isn't doing well?

The Munster Literature society - www.munsterlit.ie - holds this competition as the Frank O' Connor short story competition every year.. Frank O' Connor was a well known Irish and Cork short story writer among other literary feats.

World leading short story writers, publishers and agents enter their writers for this award in April of each year.

The winning author receives 15,000 euro within a month of the final announcement and 20,000 euro within six months.

A short list of potential winners is announced in mid July and the eventual winner announced in September at the Frank O'Connor International Short Story festival.

The idea behind this award is to encourage the short story format among writers and publishers. Books published between July 1st 2010 and June 30th 2011 were eligible for this year's award. Vanity publishing and self-publishing is not allowed. Though this stipulation may pose an annoyance for those writers, it is understandable that the hallmark of good writing must have some agreed standard.

The home of the Munster Literature society is located at the old home of Frank O' Connor, 84 Douglas Street in Cork. The society moved there in 2003 from a premises on Sullivan's quay. The funding for the society is received from the councils of the city and the county and the Arts Council of Ireland. The society serves to encourage emerging writers and publishes a journal twice yearly. It strives to publish the work of poets and short story writers in particular.

If you wish to be included in the next journal, you can visit the submission guidelines at www,munsterlit.ie.

Is your name on the short list?

The one catch about this competition is that you have to be published, which is a feat in itself nowadays.

However, once published, you have as good a chance as any in succeeding. Competitions are pretty daunting, where your work is pitched against the famous and the well tested writer. The craft of the well heeled writer is undoubtedly that of of the journeyman and emerging master.

Well crafted writing comes from the experience of the trial and error. It's really important, if you want to be deemed a 'good writer', that the strong element of craftsmanship is seen within your work. Other established and well tested writers are probably the best judges for this kind of competition.

On the other hand, it must be a pretty daunting experience for the judges to come to a final selection from long list to short. Indeed, it must be also a pretty terrifying experience to have to make the final choice of one winner. What must go through the judges' heads before the final name from the short list emerges after weeks of speculation?

As for the winner, the obvious delight and perhaps amazement and shock must be a real talking point and contrast among those who didn't succeed.

If the winner is a relatively unknown, the mixture of delight and terror must surely fill their brain for weeks, not to speak of the high standard now placed on their work from here on in.

The well known and established writer should feel the initial satisfaction and accreditation with the enhanced status of their continuing good work. Then there is the pressure to deliver the good phrase and interesting insight to the interviewers and the curious public.

For the winner, though the prize is well valued and no doubt appreciated, the standard of producing good work has increased and sets the ceiling for next year's winner. For the publisher and agent the repetition of selecting their candidate has begun again.

Stories, short or otherwise, must be told and one must wonder at the intensity of it all. Does a competition really produce good writing and standard? It would seem so, from the continuing list of 'good' writing produced each year.

However, I have to ask the question which is - would we be better off without the competitive element and if we switched to the inclusive and not the selective element? Would standards emerge without the pressure?

I worry that we may be heading for the 'sacred cow' or some such, and perhaps 'deifying', rather than exploring and searching. Surely there are 'good' writers who slip by the process, under the radar of recognition by their peers and who simply hide out undiscovered, unread and unrecognised by choice and deliberate omission of their own neglect?

Would an exploring inclusive process produce the same standards by the action of subjective elimination in the public mind? Should we streamline or should we just take our chances that a 'gem' or two will emerge of its own freewill?

What do you think? The competitive route or not?