Cherise Saywell wins BBC National Short Story Award for 'Ditto'
Edinburgh-based writer Cherise Saywell has won the 2026 BBC National Short Story Award for 'Ditto'.
The result was announced at a ceremony at BBC Broadcasting House. The winner receives £15,000, while each shortlisted author receives £600, according to The Guardian.
'Ditto' follows a boy nicknamed Ditto who uses a public telephone box to call the police when his mother is threatened. It is set in an isolated Australian town inspired by the place where Saywell grew up. The BBC lists the story as set in a small town in 1990s rural Australia, as heard in BBC Radio 4.
Saywell was born and raised in Australia and has lived in Scotland since 1996. She is the author of two novels, Desert Fish and Twitcher, and works for the Royal Literary Fund, a charity that supports professional writers. Her short fiction has previously won the Pindrop short story award, the Mslexia short story prize and the VS Pritchett prize.
This was not her first time in contention. Saywell was previously shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award in 2023. Her 2026 entry was broadcast as a 28-minute episode and presented as the third shortlisted story, according to BBC Sounds.
The 2026 shortlist comprised Saywell plus four other writers: Caoilinn Hughes, Lucy Caldwell, Laura Beatty and Merryn Glover. Caldwell won the same award in 2021. Each of their stories appears in an anthology published by Comma Press, an independent publisher specialising in short fiction, and is available to listen to on BBC Sounds.
The award is run in collaboration with the University of Cambridge. The 2026 judging panel was chaired by Di Speirs, a former BBC books editor. The judges were writers Saba Sams, Tahmima Anam, Will Eaves and Andrew Michael Hurley. Sams won the award in 2022. Last year's winner was Colwill Brown for You Cannot Thread a Moving Needle.
A separate young writer's award, open to 14 to 18-year-olds, went to Eloise Barrett. Barrett, 17 and from Birmingham, won for Bloodshed in Rafah.
What makes this stand out is the return. Shortlisted two years ago, Saywell now takes the main prize from a field that included two former winners turned judges and rivals.
