Vox9 Short Story Awards 2026
Version 1.1 · 17 September 2026
What changed in version 1.1 (17 September 2026). Entries are capped at two per person in different categories, and at one category prize per person. Those limits count the person rather than the account. Erotica, 18+ and NSFW entries are not accepted. Narration is one per entry, with further ones by request, and the voice comes from a short Competition list. Recording quality is confirmed as not judged. Nothing here has been made harsher for anyone who has already registered an interest, because entries have not opened.
The Competition is not open yet. These terms are published in advance so you can read them before deciding whether to register your interest. Registering places you under no obligation and is not an entry.
Dates, and any change to the prize structure, will be confirmed here and on the Awards page before entries open, and everyone who has registered will be emailed.
The Competition is run by Vox9 Studios Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales, company number 16892001.
These terms apply to the Vox9 Short Story Awards 2026 ("the Competition") and sit alongside the Vox9 Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Where they conflict, these terms govern the Competition only.
Entry is free. No purchase is necessary, no payment is required at any stage, and buying anything from Vox9 does not improve your chance of winning.
Entries are assessed on merit by human judges against the criteria in clause 10. Prizes are not allocated by chance. The Competition is therefore a competition of skill and is not a lottery under the Gambling Act 2005.
You are responsible for your own costs in entering, including internet access and, if you choose to narrate your own story, any recording costs.
Opening and closing dates will be published here and on the Awards page before entries open. Entries received after the closing time will not be considered, whatever the reason, including technical failure at your end or ours. Do not leave it until the last hour.
If we extend the closing date we will say so on the Awards page and email everyone who has registered or entered.
Free narration allowance. Every entrant gets a free allowance of Vox9 AI narration to produce their entry. It is one allowance per person, and it has no cash value, cannot be transferred, does not carry over after the Competition closes, and may only be used to produce a Competition entry.
Registering your interest does not grant any narration. The allowance is issued only after you submit a manuscript and we accept it, it is sized to that manuscript, and it is granted once. We may hold or refuse an allowance where we reasonably believe an account was created to claim it.
One narration per entry. The allowance covers producing your story once. A second or later narration is not automatic: you request it, saying which entry it is and why you need it, and we grant it or explain why not. We will publish how to request one when entries open, and awards@vox9.io always works. Narration is the one part of this Competition that costs real money, and asking is what keeps the budget available to everyone rather than to whoever clicks most.
Reasons we expect to grant: you have rewritten or meaningfully edited the story; the narration mispronounces something that matters; the audio came out faulty; the wrong version of the text was submitted. Reasons we expect to decline: wanting to hear it in a different voice, or preferring the sound of another take. If the fault was ours, it never counts against you and you do not need to justify it.
Ask in good time. We will not hold the closing date open for a regeneration requested in the last day or two.
The Competition also has a total narration budget. If it is exhausted before the closing date we will say so on the Awards page, and later entrants may need to narrate their own story or wait. We will not stop anyone entering because of it.
Which voice reads your story. Entries narrated by Vox9 pick from a short list of Competition voices offered at submission. You choose from that list; you cannot browse the full Vox9 voice library for this, and you pick once: changing your mind about a voice is not a reason we grant a second narration. This keeps one entrant from spending the shared budget auditioning voices, and keeps a distinctive voice from identifying its author to a judge who is supposed to be reading blind.
Narrating it yourself. You may submit your own recording instead, or have someone narrate it for you, at your own cost. It must be your own manuscript read substantially as written, audible throughout, and no longer than the limit above. You must hold or have cleared the rights to the recording and to any music or sound effects in it. We may reject audio we cannot listen to, or that does not match the manuscript you submitted, and will tell you why and give you a chance to replace it before the closing date.
By entering you confirm that:
If a third party claims your entry infringes their rights, we may remove it from the Competition while we look into it, and disqualify it if the claim is well founded.
Entries must comply with the Vox9 content rules. We will not accept entries containing sexual content involving minors, content that sexualises real people without consent, or incitement to violence or hatred.
This Competition is not open to erotica, 18+ or NSFW entries. The Competition is a general-audience one, so entries must contain no erotica, no explicit or graphic sexual content, and nothing that would be marked 18+ or NSFW. The test is simple: if the story would carry the NSFW flag on Vox9, it cannot be entered. Vox9 itself hosts adult work and that is not going to change. This Competition is separate, and it is judged, promoted and played to a general audience.
Sex may be referred to, and a story may be about desire, relationships or violence done to a person. What it may not do is depict sexual activity explicitly or exist to arouse. If you are unsure which side of that your story sits, ask before you submit.
Dark themes, violence, horror and profanity are all acceptable in context. This is a fiction competition, not a sanitised one, and the line above is about sexual content rather than about comfort. A Horror entry should be as frightening as you can make it. If you think an entry sits near a line, say so when you submit and we will tell you before judging rather than after.
Both human-written and AI-assisted stories are welcome and are judged together.
You must state honestly how your story was written, choosing one of Human Written, AI Brainstormed, AI Assisted or AI Generated, as defined on the entry form. You must also state how it was narrated.
Your disclosure is hidden from the judges until scoring is finished and locked. We publish it afterwards.
Deliberately false disclosure is grounds for disqualification and for withdrawal of a prize already awarded. We do not claim any tool can prove how a piece of writing was produced, and we will not disqualify anyone on the basis of a detector. If a disclosure is challenged we may ask a shortlisted entrant for a reasonable account of their process.
You keep copyright in your story. Nothing here transfers ownership to us.
You grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, stream, reproduce, publicly perform, promote and archive your entry and its narration, in connection with the Competition and its promotion, for three years from the results date.
That licence lets us publish your entry on Vox9, include it in shortlists and results, use short extracts and your cover image to promote this and future Vox9 competitions, and keep an archive copy. It also lets us use your name or pen name and your story's title in connection with the Competition. We will not imply you endorse Vox9 beyond having entered.
You remain free to publish, sell, adapt and license your story anywhere else, at any time, including during the Competition. The licence is non-exclusive precisely so that stays true.
Where your entry is narrated using Vox9's AI narration, we own the resulting recording and you may use it freely and indefinitely for any purpose. Where you supply your own narration, you or your narrator own that recording, and the licence above applies to it.
Entries are judged blind. Judges do not see your name, your Vox9 profile, your follower or listener numbers, your AI disclosure, or how many people have played your entry, until scoring is finished and locked.
| Criterion | Weight |
|---|---|
| Story and originality | 40 |
| Character and craft | 25 |
| How well the writing works when heard | 20 |
| Ending and emotional impact | 15 |
Recording quality is not judged. "How well the writing works when heard" means the writing: dialogue that carries, prose that survives being spoken, a structure that holds without a page in front of you. It does not mean the quality of the voice or the recording. A professionally narrated entry earns nothing over one read by a Vox9 voice, and judges are briefed accordingly. Production is where Listener's Choice comes in, because listeners vote on the experience.
Each entry reaching the judged round is scored by more than one judge. Judges declare any conflict of interest and are reassigned where one exists. The number of judges per entry will be confirmed before entries open.
The judges' decision is final. We will not enter into correspondence about individual scores. We will publish the criteria, the panel and the scoring method.
If we do not receive enough entries in a category to run it properly, we may merge it into another category or withdraw it, and we will say so publicly with our reasoning. Any entry in a withdrawn category may be moved or withdrawn at the entrant's choice.
The Listener's Choice award is voted for by Vox9 listeners from the shortlist. To vote you need a Vox9 account with a verified email address, and you must have listened to a meaningful portion of the entry you are voting for. One vote per account per award, changeable until voting closes.
We will invalidate votes we reasonably believe to be fraudulent, automated or purchased, and we may disqualify an entrant who solicits fraudulent votes. Asking your readers to listen and vote is fine and expected. Buying votes is not.
| Award | Prize |
|---|---|
| Winner, each category | £250 |
| Second, each category | £100 |
| Third, each category | £50 |
| Story of the Year | £500 |
| Listener's Choice | £250 |
Prizes are paid in pounds sterling, within 30 days of the winner supplying valid payment details. We may ask you to confirm your identity and eligibility before paying, and we may decline to pay until you do.
One individual, one category prize. The cap in this clause applies to the person, so if two winning entries turn out to be the same individual under different accounts, names or email addresses, only the higher-placed one is paid and the rest are withdrawn. Where two prize payments would go to the same bank, PayPal or other payment account, we may treat them as the same person and ask you to show otherwise.
One category prize per person. Judging is blind, so judges do not know who wrote what and rank entries on merit alone. If, once the results are unblinded, the same person would take a prize in both categories they entered, they keep the higher-placed one and the next entry down in the other category moves up. Higher-placed means first over second over third; if the two placings are equal, the entrant chooses which to keep.
Story of the Year and Listener's Choice are judged across all categories and sit outside that cap, so one story may take a category prize and one of those as well. Neither is awarded twice to the same person.
There is no cash alternative to any non-cash element, and prizes are not transferable.
You are responsible for any tax due on a prize in your own country. We do not deduct tax and we cannot give tax advice.
If we cannot reach a winner within 28 days of first attempting to, or a winner cannot accept the prize, we may award it to the next-placed entry.
Judges are selected by us, and applying does not guarantee appointment. Judges are paid an honorarium of up to £250, agreed in writing before judging starts and scaled to the number of entries assigned. Payment is conditional on completing the assigned scoring by the deadline.
Judges agree to keep entries confidential, not to discuss entries publicly before results, and to declare conflicts of interest.
Results will be published on the Awards page and winners notified by email. We will publish the names or pen names, categories and story titles of winners. If you win and object to your name being published, tell us before the results date and we will discuss alternatives, but we must be able to show a winner exists.
For six weeks after the results you can request the winners' details by emailing awards@vox9.io.
The principle. This Competition is free to enter and gives away narration, so the limits exist to keep it open to everyone rather than to catch people out. One person, up to two stories, one allowance, one category prize. Everything in this clause follows from that, and we would rather explain a rule than enforce one.
We may disqualify an entry if you breach these terms, supply false information, enter from more than one account, attempt to manipulate voting or judging, harass another entrant or a judge, or bring the Competition into disrepute. If a breach comes to light after a prize is awarded, we may ask for it back.
We may act on reasonable belief and are not required to prove a connection beyond doubt before withdrawing an entry. Signals we may take into account include matching or near-matching names, email addresses, payment details, devices or network addresses at sign-up or entry, and the age of the account at the time of entry. We will tell you if we withdraw an entry on this basis and give you a chance to respond before any decision is final.
We are the data controller for personal data you give us when entering. Vox9 is registered with the Information Commissioner's Office, registration ZC139577.
We use your data to run the Competition: to process your entry, contact you about it, pay a prize and publish results. Our lawful basis is performance of a contract (these terms) and our legitimate interest in running and promoting the Competition.
We keep entry records for two years after the results date, and financial records for as long as tax law requires.
We do not sell your data, and we do not add you to a marketing list because you entered. Registering your interest is a separate, optional thing you chose. Your rights, and how to exercise them, are in our Privacy Policy. You can complain to the ICO at ico.org.uk.
We are not liable for entries lost, delayed or corrupted in transmission, or for any failure of a network or service outside our reasonable control.
Nothing in these terms limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited. Subject to that, our total liability to you in connection with the Competition is limited to the value of the prize you would have been entitled to.
We may change these terms, the categories, the dates or the prize structure where we reasonably need to. If a change materially disadvantages entrants we will publish it here and on the Awards page, email everyone who has entered, and you may withdraw your entry.
We may cancel the Competition if circumstances outside our reasonable control make running it fairly impossible. If we cancel after entries have opened, we will say why.
These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction. If you live elsewhere in the UK you may bring proceedings in your own country's courts. Nothing here affects your statutory rights.
Email awards@vox9.io. We aim to respond within five working days.