Basket: The 2026 Crossing the Tees Short Story Competition is now open!
There is no theme for the short stories and anyone aged 16 and over can enter. The maximum word count is 3000 words.
All shortlisted stories will appear in a published anthology and there will cash prizes for the winners:
1st prize £100, 2nd prize £75, 3rd prize £50.
The winners will be announced in March 2027.
Closing date for entries is midnight Friday 31st July 2026.
Entry is £5. You can enter the competition here www.stockton.gov.uk/shortstoryentry
When you get your payment confirmation it will include an entry form that you will need to copy onto a word document. If you have any problems please email info@crossingthetees.org
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The winner of the 2025 short story competition is … Julie Kirk!
We had an amazing night at Middlesbrough Central Library on 24 March celebrating the winners of the short story competition and launching our ninth anthology.
First prize goes to Julie Kirk for As The Crow Flies.
Second prize goes to Martin Feekins for The Last Fish and Chip Supper.
Third prize goes to Linny Johnstone for Occupation Hazard.
The judges also chose to highly commend Eithne Longstaff for Cast Away and Lindsey Ellwood for Child Zero.
The evening was presented by Rachel Teate from BBC Radio Tees and was a real celebration of the breadth of talented writers in our area.
The audience heard from Writer-in-Residence for 2025 Amy Lord and it was fantastic to see writers who had attended one of Amy’s workshops during 2025’s festival being shortlisted for the prize. Winner Julie Kirk actually started her winning story in one of Amy’s workshops!
The audience also heard from the three judges who had the difficult job of choosing the winners. Thank you to Judith Baker, Natalie Scott and Trevor Wood for taking on this incredibly difficult role.
All shortlisted writers were gifted a copy of the anthology and copies of the book will be available to buy from Drake the Bookshop in Stockton and Book Corner in Saltburn. They will also be available to borrow from libraries across the Tees Valley.
Huge thanks to Sixth Element Publishing for the mammoth job of shortlisting more than eighty entries and working with the writers to publish the anthology. Thanks to Scott Bonner for photographing the event and thanks to Middlesbrough Libraries for hosting the event.
