The Judges: Claire Steele and Jill Glenn

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BeaconFlash is our annual 500-word short story competition, offering extended critique and web publication to winners. 

Once again we are extremely grateful to Creasey & Co,  offering chartered accountancy services, for sponsoring the competition for the second year running. The story awarded first place will win the Creasey & Co BeaconFlash Prize.

This year's competition will again be judged by publisher, editor, tutor and mentor Claire Steele and publisher, editor and writer Jill Glenn, both of Constellations Press. Entry is £3 per story or £13 with critique.

There are eight prizes this year, to a total value of £700. Every penny of profit goes to the Beacon Villages Community Library.

This year's BeaconFlash competition runs from September 2026 to May 2027, with a monthly deadline (see below). The top three stories (from three different authors) for each month go through to the final shortlist (of 27 entries), from which eight prize winners will be selected (see ‘Prizes’ below). These winners will be announced on Saturday 10th July at BeaconLit's 2027 festival.

Please read the following for an understanding of how to apply and what to expect in this year's competition.

You can enter (via the form below) as often as you like, whenever you like. It doesn’t make a difference which month or months you enter because you won’t know who else is submitting that month. The more times you enter, the more chances you have of going through to the shortlist. Even if you are selected in a particular month, do keep entering because you might find you have a stronger story in a subsequent month and therefore have a better chance of being amongst the prize-winners.

Any stories not written to the relevant month’s theme will be disqualified with no money refunded. You can write them whenever you like but if you submit them early or late, they will be disqualified.

Our volunteer judges receive very high submission rounds. The top three titles (not authors’ names – see ‘Judging’ below) for each month are usually announced within six weeks. If your story doesn’t make it, please feel free to send it elsewhere.

TO ENTER:

Paste your story into an email, with the subject titled '@BeaconFlash 500 Entry', followed by your title (e.g @BeaconFlash 500 Entry Sunday's Song) and then send it to beaconflash500@gmail.com. Then pay the fee using the PayPal buttons shown under ‘Fees’ below. We can only accept your entry if payment has been received.

For 2026/27, Claire Steele and Jill Glenn are judging each round and the final shortlist. Judging is blind, meaning the judges will not know who wrote which story until the prize winners are announced.

Please note that no author can be awarded more than one prize. This means that, if an entrant has more than one story ranked in the top eight, then only their best story will be selected. The best story by another author outside the eight will then be a winner. In effect, the best stories by the top eight authors will be awarded the prizes. The judge’s decisions are final. Results are posted on this website.

• Round 1: First deadline: 30th September 2026 THEME - Harvest Moon

• Round 2: Second deadline: 31st October 2026 THEME - Speak of the Devil

• Round 3: Third deadline: 30th November 2026 THEME - Early to Bed

• Round 4: Fourth deadline: 31st December 2026 THEME - Behind the Scenes

• Round 5: Fifth deadline: 31st January 2027 THEME - New Every Morning

• Round 6: Sixth deadline: 28th February 2027 THEME - Not Love Exactly

• Round 7: Seventh deadline: 31st March 2027 THEME - Like a Lion

• Round 8: Eighth deadline: 30th April 2027 THEME - It Never Rains

• Round 9: Ninth and final deadline: 31st May 2027 THEME - A Line in the Sand

The eight winners (see ‘Prizes’ below) will be announced here between July-August. The top three stories will then be credited and published on the site.

A total of eight prizes will be awarded, including eight free passes to the following year’s BeaconLit Festival (worth £35 in 2026). Prizes are as follows:

First Prize (the Creasey & Co BeaconFlash Prize)

£90 plus up to 5,000 words critique* from the competition’s judge (worth £100) and free entry to the following year’s BeaconLit festival in July 2026 with publication on the BeaconLit website.

Second Prize

£60 plus up to 4,000 words critique* (worth £80) and free entry to the following year’s BeaconLit festival, plus publication on the BeaconLit website.

Third Prize

£30 plus up to 3,000 words critique* (worth £60) and free entry to the following year’s BeaconLit festival, plus publication on the BeaconLit website.

Five further prizes of free entry to the following year’s BeaconLit festival.

*the critique offered as prizes can made up of one or more short stories and / or a novel extract.

• Must be previously unpublished stories
• No genre restrictions but must be fiction
• No age limits
• Open worldwide but written in English only. BeaconFlash will not meet any additional costs associated with paying out prize money to overseas entrants
• Entrants must not use generative AI or plagiarise or paraphrase from any AI source in writing stories for submission
• No minimum word count but no more than 500 words excluding the title. Stories over 500 words will be disqualified without being read and no refund will be given
• The theme for each month can be interpreted however suits but any story not following that theme will be disqualified and no refund will be given
• Future or past months’ entries received in the incorrect month will be disqualified, with no refund given, and you won’t be able to enter it in the correct month
• Only the first version of a submitted story will be accepted. Further ‘revisions’ will ignored
• Please do not make the theme for the month the title of your story. A good title should be part of the entry and carry some creative weight where the judging is tight. Several anonymised stories with the same title also carry a risk of confusion and administrative error
• Please read your stories carefully as any spelling or careless mistakes will be marked down
• No author will win more than one prize (see ‘How it Works’)
• The judge’s decisions are final and no correspondence regarding specific entries will be entered into
• The top three prize-winning stories will be published on the BeaconLit website. The other five can be sent elsewhere immediately, and the top three winning stories can be re-used six months after publication here (but note you will need to tell the prospective market that the stories have already been published)
• The use of AI to generate material is prohibited and any stories found to be using assistive software will be disqualified without a refund.

 The BeaconFlash judges for 2026/27 will be Claire Steele and Jill Glenn of Constellations Press, a local independent publisher, dedicated to bold and original voices.

Claire Steele trained as an editor with Phaidon Press and has worked as a freelance editor, university lecturer, creative writing tutor and mentor. She runs Constellations Creative, a bespoke ten-month writing course.

Jill Glenn has worked as a features writer, magazine editor and editorial consultant for over 30 years. She is currently writing a novel and working on a collection of short stories.

Claire and Jill also run Constellations Literary Consultancy, which offers editing, mentoring and author support services.

If you have any general queries about the competition, please email us at beaconflash500@gmail.com and we’ll get back to you.