In September last year we launched our first ever Short Story Competition to support new and emerging short form writers. We put out an open call for writers to send us their response to the chosen theme of ‘The Censor’. We were overwhelmed by the response from all over the world and impressed by the high quality of writing. We have had the pleasure to read so many short stories that are diverse, ingenious and surprising. And after a long reading process we are excited to announce the 25 shortlisted stories that have made it through to our final judging round.
In alphabetical order by title, the 25 shortlisted stories are:
Aiden Shaw’s Penis – Ali Said
Ask Me No Questions – Joe Martin
Baldilocks – Shikhandin
Borders – Simon Birks
Ebb and Flow – Kazia Polak
Fortress – Catherine Rudolph
Inspiration – Sloane Leong
Just to You – Jane Copland
Obituary of an Outcast – Kendall Klym
Oxbridge Environmental Dictionary – Gabriel Hemery
Penguin: A Flightless Migratory Bird – Selma Carvalho
Redact – Michael Harris Cohen
Reflections – Mubanga Kalimamukwento
Refracted – Stephanie Wilderspin
The Closed Door – Alice Haworth-Booth
The Colour of the Sun – Penelope Atkinson
The door of a public bathroom stall is a pigeon with a thousand letters bound to its feet – Mohsen Emaamverdi
The General and the Birds – Fernando A. Torres
The Many Different Lives of Denola – Oluwatimilehin (Timi) Odueso
The Song Bird – Nathan Alling Long
The Very Best is Available to Me – Deborah Green
Three Acts from a Woman’s Life – Mitra Madadi
Vestiges – Kiki Gonglewski
Words – Rae Theodore
Wrestling with Plato – Edward Barnfield
To help us select our final 12 stories and the overall winner from these, we are delighted to welcome the expertise of two external judges to our judging panel:
Amyra Leon is a New York City-based author, playwright, musician and activist. Her work fuses music and poetry focusing on social inequalities and communal healing. She has three literary works due to be published in 2020.
Coco Khan is a London-based journalist for the Guardian, writing on arts media and popular culture often through a political lens. She is a contributing writer to two short story anthologies, The Good Immigrant and It’s Not About the Burqa.
The 25 shortlisted stories will be narrowed down to the final 12 to be published in a beautiful anthology next year. An overall winner will be selected and they will receive £2000 prize money. We will make the final announcement on Tuesday May 26th.