The Brick Lane Bookshop Short Story Prize was created in 2019 as a celebration of the short story form and the resilience of independent booksellers. Funded by Brick Lane Bookshop, the competition is open to UK and Irish residents and seeks to discover, publish and promote new, exciting and diverse voices in fiction. The 2026 Brick Lane Bookshop Short Story Prize judges are: Shani Akilah, author of For Such A Time as This. Ludo Cinelli, Agent and Managing Director at Eve White Agency. Andrew Porter, author of The Imagined Life, The Disappeared, In Between Days, The Theory of Light and Matter.