source: www.cam.ac.uk
The shortlist for the 2025 BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University was announced last night, Thursday 11 September, on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row, as the prestigious prize celebrates its 20th anniversary.
I am proud to represent the University on this partnership; I believe we have a role to play in supporting the production of literary excellence in Britain.Dr Bonnie Lander Johnson
The University of Cambridge is proud to support the Award, recognised as one of the UK’s most significant literary prizes for a single short story. The prize aims to expand opportunities for British writers, readers and publishers of the short form, and to honour the country’s finest exponents of the genre. Cambridge staff, students and researchers contribute to the partnership, which also offers unique professional development opportunities for PhD students through a BBC shadowing scheme.
The 2025 shortlist
This year’s shortlist has been praised for its ‘intimate,’ ‘elegant’ and ‘nuanced’ explorations of relationships, community and the specificities of place:
- ‘Yair’ by Emily Abdeni-Holman
- ‘You Cannot Thread a Moving Needle’ by Colwill Brown
- ‘Little Green Man’ by Edward Hogan
- ‘Two Hands’ by Caoilinn Hughes
- ‘Rain, a History’ by Andrew Miller
Set in locations from Derbyshire and Doncaster to Jerusalem and County Kildare, the stories explore ‘self-contained’ worlds often inspired by personal memories and experiences, from the complexities of marriage, to the mysteries of survival in crisis; from newly formed inter-generational bonds, to the quiet tension between people and place, each reveals the short story’s ‘unparalleled’ power to reflect ‘the times we are living through.’
The five shortlisted stories will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 from 15 – 19 September and made available on BBC Sounds. They will also appear in an anthology published by Comma Press.
The winner will receive £15,000, with £600 awarded to each of the other shortlisted writers. The announcement will be made live on Front Row on Tuesday 30 September 2025.
A BBC and Cambridge partnership
Cambridge’s long-term partnership with both the BBC National Short Story Award and the BBC Young Writers’ Award, is led by Dr Bonnie Lander Johnson (Fellow and Associate Professor in English at Downing and Newnham Colleges) and Dr Elizabeth Rawlinson-Mills (University Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education and Fellow of Robinson College).
Dr Lander Johnson said:
“The National Short Story Awards continue to be the largest and most prestigious awards of their kind in the UK. I am proud to represent the University on this partnership; I believe we have a role to play in supporting the production of literary excellence in Britain. Storytelling is an essential human impulse through which we reflect on our changing world, inspire younger generations, and make sense of our collective and individual lives. It is essential that Cambridge University remains part of such crucial cultural work. Who are we if we cannot tell our stories?”
Dr Rawlinson-Mills added:
“The short story as a form is intense. Compact, powerful, challenging – for the writer and, often, for the reader. Each year the National Short Story Award brings us into contact with some of the most exciting voices in English writing, and over the past twenty years it’s been a privilege to see the ways in which winning this prize has boosted writers’ profiles and brought their work to new audiences through the broadcasts on R4. Every year there are new reasons to feel that we need stories more than ever. I am very proud of the part the University of Cambridge continues to play in supporting the prize and therefore supporting new writing.”
In 2025, the Award is generously supported by the School of Arts and Humanities, the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Faculties of English and Education, Downing and Robinson Colleges, the University Library, the Fitzwilliam Museum, and the University of Cambridge’s Institute for Professional and Continuing Education (PACE).
Cambridge PhD students are also benefitting from the BBC Partnership Shadowing Scheme, which allows arts and social sciences researchers at Cambridge to work with BBC teams on programming around the Awards, developing valuable skills in cultural engagement and public communication.
About the Award
First presented in 2006, the BBC National Short Story Award has honoured leading and emerging voices including Sarah Hall, Cynan Jones, Ingrid Persaud, and Saba Sams. Alumni of the shortlist include Zadie Smith, Hilary Mantel, Tessa Hadley and Caleb Azumah Nelson.
The 2025 judging panel is chaired by Di Speirs MBE, joined by William Boyd, Lucy Caldwell, Ross Raisin and Kamila Shamsie.
The BBC Young Writers’ Award with Cambridge University, now in its 11th year, also continues to inspire writers aged 14 – 18. The shortlist will be announced on Sunday 14 September, with the winner also revealed on 30 September.
For more information, visit www.bbc.co.uk/nssa.
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