Welcome to the Guardian and 4th Estate 4thWrite Short Story Prize, a competition open to Black, Asian and minority ethnic writers living in the UK or Ireland who are 18 and above.

We want to read your story, whatever it may be.

This is the eighth year of the prize. Over the previous years, we have been overwhelmed by the quality of the stories we have found and the impact the prize has had. Last year’s winner was Tian Yi with her story, The Good Son.

We have had some extremely exciting writers longlisted and shortlisted for the prize who have gone on to have their work published, including the likes of Bolu Babalola, author of Love in Colour and Honey & Spice, published by Headline, Guy Gunaratne, author of In Our Mad and Furious City published by Tinder Press, Kasim Ali, author of Good Intentions published by 4th Estate, Gurnaik Johal, author of We Move published by Serpent’s Tail and Kit Fan, author of Diamond Hill published by Dialogue.

Previous winners of the prize include Olivia Douglass for their story Ink, in 2022, and Gift Nyoni, for his story The Ritual Seat of the King in 2021.

We are incredibly proud of the prize here at 4th Estate and it is our hope that it continues to open up new opportunities for writers of colour. The winner will receive £1,000, a one-day publishing workshop at 4th Estate and publication of their story on the Guardian website. After the winner is announced, the full shortlist will be published on 4thestate.co.uk.

Our judges this year are Sheena Patel, author of I’m a Fan, which was an Observer Best Debut of 2022, Laline Paull, author of the Women’s Prize shortlisted novels The Bees and Pod, Zing Tsjeng, journalist and author of Forgotten Women, Emma Leong, literary agent at Janklow & Nesbit UK, Justine Jordan, Fiction Editor at the Guardian and Kishani Widyaratna, Publishing Director at 4^th Estate and Editor of the Year at the 2024 British Book Awards.