The Kitschies reward the year’s most progressive, intelligent and entertaining fiction that contain elements of the speculative or fantastic.We are proudly sponsored by Blackwell’s.



The Kitschies announce the opening of submissions for 2020

The Kitschies, literature’s most tentacular prize, are pleased to announce that they are open to submissions for books published in the UK in 2020.

The Kitschies rewards the year’s most progressive, intelligent and entertaining books that contain elements of the speculative and fantastic. Winners receive a total of £2,500 in prize money, as well as one of the prize’s iconic hand-crafted Tentacle trophies.

The judges for the Red and Golden Tentacles are M.R. Carey, Mahvesh Murad, Daphne Lao Tonge and Kaiya Shang. Inky Tentacle judges are Fleur Clarke, James Spackman, Emily McGovern and Clare Richardson.

The prize is now in its eleventh year, with previous winners including Margaret Atwood, Nina Allan, Ruth Ozeki, Lauren Beukes, China Miéville, Karen Lord, Nick Harkaway, Kameron Hurley and Patrick Ness.

The 2019 Kitschies winners were Jan Carson’s The Firestarters (Red Tentacle) and Clare Rees’ Jelly (Golden Tentacle), selected from a shortlist that included Yoko Ogawa, Amal El Mohtar, Max Gladstone, Wayétu Moore, Katie Hale and Rory Power. Tyler Comrie collected the Inky Tentacle for the cover design of Yoko Ogawa’s The Memory Police.

Last year, The Kitschies received 196 submissions from over 50 publishers and imprints, including self-published books. The prize is open to both digital and physical submissions.

Please see the http://www.thekitschies.com for submissions instructions as well as more information about the judges and the prize as well as to

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Who are our 2020 Judges?