Tonga's creative writers have an opportunity to enter and win prestigious prizes offered in the Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2016 awards – but the time is also short before entries close on November 1.

“We are hoping for more entries from Tonga to the Commonwealth Short Story Prize,” said Kitty Drake, an organizer.

“Each year, we select five winning writers from five different Commonwealth regions. Regional winners receive £2,500 (US$3,835) and the overall winner will receive £5,000 (US$7,670). If the winning short story is a translation into English, the translator will receive equal prize money.”

The competition brings stories from new and emerging voices, often from countries with little or no publishing infrastructure, to the attention of an international audience.

Entry is free and the top prize of £5000 – worth about Tongan $15,600 -is awarded for the best piece of unpublished short fiction (2,000-5,000 words) in English. Short stories translated into English from other languages are also eligible,

The conditions include that

• Entries must be submitted via the online entry form by 1 November 2015 (12 noon GMT)
• Entrants must be aged 18 years or over on 1 November 2015. 

• The story must be original and should not have been published anywhere in full or in part before 1 May 2016. Published work is taken to mean published in any printed, publicly accessible form, e.g. anthology, magazine, newspaper. It is also taken to mean published online, with the exception of personal blogs and personal websites. 

• All entries must be in English. Translations of short stories written in languages other than English are eligible if submitted by the writer (not the translator) and provided the translator is a citizen of a Commonwealth country. 

• Entries must be 2,000 words minimum, 5,000 words maximum. 

• The story should be adult fiction and must not have been written for children alone.

The submission form is available at:

http://www.commonwealthwriters.org/prizes/commonwealth-short-story-prize/submit-an-entry/ [2]

Commonwealth Writers is the cultural initiative of the Commonwealth Foundation [3]. It was set up in 2012 to inspire and connect writers and storytellers across the world.

“We believe that well-told stories can help people make sense of events, engage with others and take action to bring about change,” stated the organisers.