Helen Fielding Launches Bridget Jones Prize for Northern Comedy Writers

Helen Fielding, the author who created Bridget Jones, has launched a writing prize aimed at funny new voices from the north of England. The Bridget Jones Prize for Northern Comedy Writing was announced on 22 October 2026.

The challenge is short. Entrants must send a self-contained piece of first-person prose of no more than 1,000 words, and it has to be funny. "Self-contained" means the piece works as a complete story on its own, with no need for any other text. Entry is free.

The prize is open to writers living in the north who have never been published and who have not signed with a literary agent. An agent is a professional who represents writers and sells their work to publishers. Submissions open on 23 November 2026 and close on 1 February 2027.

The winner receives £2,000 and a session with Aitken Alexander Associates, the literary agency that represents Fielding. They also get tailored support from New Writing North, the organisation that runs the prize. One runner-up will receive £1,000.

A panel of three will judge the entries. Fielding will sit on it alongside an Aitken Alexander agent and a representative from New Writing North. The winner will be announced at the Northern Writers' Awards ceremony in Newcastle in summer 2027, and Fielding will present the prize in person. The prize is set to run in 2027, 2028 and 2029.

The format has a history of its own. Bridget Jones began life as a newspaper column in The Independent in 1994, first published anonymously. New Writing North notes that Fielding tried to keep each column exactly 1,000 words long. The prize's word limit is a nod to those diary entries.

Fielding grew up in Yorkshire, and the prize is designed to celebrate northern comic voices that shaped her own writing. It is also the first award in the Northern Writers' Awards devoted exclusively to comedy writing.

Bridget Jones has been a big part of popular culture since then. Fielding wrote four bestselling novels about the character. Four films followed, starring Renée Zellweger, Hugh Grant and Colin Firth, and Fielding co-wrote them and served as a co-executive producer. In 2016, Bridget Jones was named on the Woman's Hour Power List, which named seven women judged to have had the greatest impact on women's lives over the previous 70 years.

For anyone with a funny story in them and a northern postcode, the prize offers something rare: a free entry, a clear word count, and a route to an agent's desk. Entries open next month. The deadline is 1 February 2027.