The Salam Award for Imaginative Fiction, a short story award which promotes science fiction and related genres is now open for entries.
Now in its fourth year the prize aims to encourage and inspire writers from Pakistan to unleash their creative potential. The scope of the prize is broad and encompasses everything from science fiction and steampunk to magic realism and weird fiction.The winner will have their story published on the competition website and a cash prize of Rs 50,000.
The award named after Dr Abdus Salam – the only Pakistani Nobel Prize for Physics winner, was set up in 2017 by Tehseen Baweja. He says he has been delighted with the response over the past few years but now hopes to attract writers from more remote and rural areas. Tehseen said: “The Salam Award for Imaginative Fiction has been able to find some good writers in last three years from all the major cities across the world. In our first year, we were absolutely delighted to receive a story from the war-torn region of Waziristan, and every year we hope to receive more and more stories from such places.”
The prize also aims to support winning writers to take the next step in their writing career and give them access to the mainstream. “Our 2018 winner ‘Akbar Shahzad’ was invited to 2019 ICFA, where he was part of multiple panels, got much-needed exposure to Internationally renowned SFF personalities like Mary Anne Mohanraj, John Joseph Adams, A.T. Greenblatt, Sarah Pinsker, and more excitingly, had the opportunity to read his winning short story.”
More information about the prize and how to enter can be found on the website. You can watch Akbar Shahzad read his story to a packed room as part of the ‘Functionally Literate‘ session hosted by Orlando’s Burrow Press on Youtube.
The Salam Award for Imaginative Fiction is open for entries til 31 July.
