Helen Fielding seeks a new comic voice with the Bridget Jones Prize
The award joins the Northern Writers’ Awards and asks unpublished northern writers for 1,000 words of first-person prose.
Helen Fielding is launching the Bridget Jones Prize, a new Northern Writers’ Awards category devoted to comedy writing. Entry is free for adult, unpublished and unagented writers living in the North of England. Applicants must submit a self-contained piece of first-person fiction or life writing of no more than 1,000 words, echoing the diary origins of Fielding’s character. Submissions will run from 23 November 2026 to 1 February 2027, with a winner and one highly commended writer chosen for the strength of their voice and humour. The award will be presented in Newcastle in summer 2027. Announced by New Writing North on 20 October and reported more widely on the 22nd, it adds the programme’s first category devoted exclusively to comic writing.