Helen Fielding launches a comedy writing prize for Nothern talent

Bridget Jones creator Helen Fielding has launched a prize to find distinctive new comedy writers from the North of England.

The winner will receive £2,000 and support from publishing industry experts, including Fielding’s literary agents Aitken Alexander Associates. The runner-up will get £1,000 as well career support.

Fielding says she hopes to honour the Northern comic tone which inspired her own writing, from the likes of Morecambe and Wise, Victoria Wood, Les Dawson, Thora Hird and Alan Bennett.

Winners will be chosen on the strength of the funniest 1,000-word piece of first-person stand-alone prose in a nod to the mid-90s diary entries of Fielding’s fictional heroine, first published anonymously in The Independent.

Fielding said: ‘Bridget Jones’ comedy heart came from the everyday humour of people around me when growing up in Yorkshire: laughing together at our mess-ups; bringing the fancy and pretentious down to earth. 

‘There are lots of famous Northern comics. But this prize is for the comic voices of people who aren’t famous: just living their lives being quietly hilarious.

‘I always tried to make the Bridget columns exactly 1,000 words long – like making the petrol pump stop at exactly twenty quid. So, this is for the funniest standalone, first-person 1,000 words. If it’s slightly under you won’t be punished. Just don’t make it any longer!’

The Bridget Jones Prize is open to unpublished writers without agents and will run for three years – 2027, 2028 and 2029 – as part of the Northern Writers’ Awards.

Will Mackie from organisers New Writing North said: ‘This is the first time the Northern Writers’ Awards have featured an award exclusively for comedy writing. There is no one more fitting to identify an original comedy voice than Helen, who created one of the nation’s most beloved comic characters of the last 30 years. We are massively grateful for her support.’

The prize is free to enter and will open for submissions from November 23. More details are here.

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Published: 21 Oct 2026