Sunday, January 18, 2015

Making choices - Bare Fiction & Smokelong

I'm thrilled that the winners of the Bare Fiction short story competition - which I co-judged with Rachel Tresize - have now been announced, congrats to:

 
1st Prize (£500):
David McGrath, Ger Sheen and the Satanists (UK)
 
2nd Prize (£200):
Allie Rogers, Trout Quintet (UK)
 
3rd Prize (£100):
Anne Corlett, The Clay Baby (UK)
 
Highly Commended x 2 (£25):
Roy Marshall, Late (UK) chosen by Tania Hershman
Jenni Lawson, The Present (UK) chosen by Rachel Trezise
 
Shortlisted (in no particular order):
Paul Nicholas, The Clock (UK)
Annalisa Crawford, 133 Steps (UK)
Frances Gapper, Broken Thing (UK)
Tamara Jones, Dead Daffodils (UK)
Joanna Walsh, Enzo Ponza (UK)
Hannah Gildea, And Still the Sea is Salt (Portland, OR)
Jack Cooke, Still Life (UK)
Penny Simpson, Winter Solstice (UK)
Melanie Whipman, Dissolving (UK)
Paddy Doherty, The Lonely Gene (Spain)
Rachel Cather, Life of a Wasp (Belgium)

If you're interested in how the process worked, you can read our judges' reports here >> 

Also, I've now picked the flash story that will be published in Smokelong Quarterly under my guest editorship and the author of the story has been informed - there were over 100 submissions, thank you to all those of you who sent your work! I'll let you know when the story is published, I hope you'll like it as much as I do!

Friday, January 02, 2015

And the winner is...

Picked randomly out of the hat, the winner of a copy of Writing Short Stories: A Writers & Artists Companion is Tracey Upchurch! Congratulations, Tracey... and commiserations everyone else, but thank you so much for sharing about what and who gives you permission, and the book is available for purchase at the usual outlets, such as Foyles, Waterstones and the Book Depository. Happy New Year of Writing!