The Glencairn Glass Crime Short Story Competition
Do you have a knack for conjuring up sinister plots, capturing the perfect crime, or documenting deadly deeds? If so, our crime short story competition is your chance to showcase your writing talent. Glencairn Crystal, the maker of the world’s favourite whisky glass – the Glencairn Glass, and sponsor of the McIlvanney and Bloody Scotland Debut crime writing awards, is seeking crime short stories in collaboration with Bloody Scotland. This year’s theme is that the story’s protagonist must be from Scotland.
Crime Short Story Competition
Do you have a knack for conjuring up sinister plots, capturing the perfect crime, or documenting deadly deeds? If so, this is your chance to showcase your talent. Glencairn Crystal, the maker of the world’s favourite whisky glass – the Glencairn Glass, and sponsor of the McIlvanney and Bloody Scotland Debut crime writing awards, is seeking crime short stories in collaboration with Bloody Scotland This year’s theme is the protagonist must be from Scotland
This competition is now closed, please see this years winners below.
2026 Winner
MAKING FRIENDS
BY KATHY SCHILBACH
Kathy Schilbach lived in France for over 30 years, where she taught English in a lycée in the small historic town of Chinon. She loves to read crime and historical novels and had always wanted to write. Retirement from teaching gave her the time and opportunity she needed – she now lives in West Sussex and under her pen name, Kate Finnemore, has had short stories and pocket novels published as well as achieving success in several writing competitions.
2026 Runner Up
LIFE WASTED
BY ROSS ALEXANDER
Ross Alexander is a Scottish author based in East Lothian who writes crime thriller novels and short stories. He has had several short stories published by Darkstroke Books and his short story ‘Deadly Night Shades’ featured in the first edition of the Tangled Web/Aspiring Fiction magazine, a publication specialising in Tartan Noir. He has also written a number of novels, including five in his DI Joanne Christie series, set in Edinburgh and the Lothians.
Criteria For Entry
Short story must be 2,000 words or less.
The competition is open to all writers worldwide, published and unpublished, who are over 16 years old.
Stories entered for the competition should not have been previously published in any format, online or print, self-published or paid.
- All stories must be written in English
- Text should be 12-point font, ideally 1.5 or double-spaced
- Submissions must be uploaded as Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx), Rich Text (.rtf), or PDF files
- The story title and page number must appear on every page, using the document’s header function
- Please include the total word count (excluding the title) at the end of the story
- The maximum word limit is 2,000 words
All stories must be submitted via the online entry form.
Only one submission per author is permitted.
Please note that no corrections or changes can be made after submission.
The competition closes at midnight on Tuesday 31st March 2026. The winner and runner up will be announced in the summer.
All submitted stories must be original works of fiction, written entirely by the author.
Entries must not infringe copyright or any other rights of a third party and must not be defamatory of any living person or corporate body.
Stories by finalists that are published on the Glencairn Glass website or in Bloody Scotland will be fully credited.
Authors retain full copyright to their stories.
All entries will be assessed by this year’s judging panel, which includes six of the UK’s leading crime book influencers, alongside Kirsty Nicholson, Design and Marketing Manager at Glencairn Crystal.
The judges’ decision is final, and Glencairn Crystal Studio cannot enter into discussion with entrants regarding the judging process.
Unfortunately, we are unable to provide individual feedback on submitted stories.
The overall winner will receive £1,000, have their story published on the Bloody Scotland website, and will be offered a guest appearance at the Bloody Scotland Festival in September 2026. The runner-up will receive £500.
Both winning stories will also be published on the Glencairn Glass website (whiskyglass.com), and the winner and runner-up will each receive a set of six bespoke engraved Glencairn Glasses.
By entering the competition, writers agree that if they are selected as winner or runner-up, their stories may be published on the whiskyglass.com and bloodyscotland.com websites.
Winning work may also be used elsewhere for publicity purposes.
