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LONGLIST Fish Flash Fiction Prize 2014

278 stories longlisted
(1,250 stories submitted in total)

Protégé A.B. Speake
The First Thing I Do A.B. Speake
Full Irish Adrian Wistreich
Agnes Does Not Live Here Anymore Aida Lennon
The Shape of a Heart Aidan Miller
DIG Alex Lockwood
HANGI DAY Alex Reece Abbott
We Ali Svenson
We Used To Play At Husband And Wife, Never Mum And Dad. Alice Frecknall
Pocket Book Alison Moore
Alone Allison Getty
Wake Bleary AM McCormack
Clowns Amanda O’Callaghan
All the perfumes Amanda O’Callaghan
Value Amanda Oosthuizen
Freedom Amber Fales
Without Amy O’Neil
Crocodiles Andre Mangeot
When the Wind Blows Andrea Hughes
Birdman Andrew Dawson
The Trouble With Men Andy Shearer
EMIGRATION Angela Rojter
A Whiff of Lilac Anita Lehmann
Talking About Horses Anna Baness
Hot Dog anne shewring
Anomaly Anne-Marie Hoeve
Empathy Anne-Marie Hoeve
The ex-lover’s gifts Anthea Lacchia
The Orange Scarf Austin Veldman
Dios Dira Axayacatl Velasco
Without Gingersnaps Barbara Mertus
YOU SEE A SHOOTING STAR Beatriz Gartler
White Wedding Becky Lucas
Timbuktu Beejay Silcox
The Catch bernard lord
A Sultry Day bernard lord
A BURNING DESIRE bill Simpson
Wrong Entrance Bren Gosling
They Know I Have To Work brenda mezick
The Summer Holiday Brian Bell
No Future Brian Bell
Once a home Brian O Beirne
Cookies Brian Spellman
Time to Go Bronwyn Cozens
THE FUNERAL DRESS Carmen Estevez
Remember, Remember… Carol Caffrey
Lipstick Lives in the Shop Caroline Auckland
Alter ego Caroline Brett
no fixed abode caroline moir
The Marble Catherine Watkins
Nanna’s Shadows Catherine Wilson
The Big Rock Catriona Shine
Orla didn’t have lights on her bike and it was getting dark Ceridwen Buckmaster
LOST CARGO Cheryl O’Brien
A Burnt out Case Chris Lakeman Fraser
Thirteen Christina Eagles
Stony Looks Christine Todd
Aimless Love Claire Sadlier
Plumbing Colin Watts
a touch of mustard Conor Keane
Hagar Playing Goalie Courtney Sender
At My Turned Back Cynthia Hyde
Fourfather (sic) Daniel Perry
The Jug Daphne Kalmar
A Clean Break Daphne Kalmar
The Map Darothy Durkac
re: Long Stay Guests dave lordan
Old School Ties David Smith
Marseille David Steward
Driven Debbie Willox
Resus Deborah Rickard
Resus Deborah Rickard
Blue-Sky Thinking Deirdre Daly
Long Live the King Derek Leif
Counting Dervla Browne
Road Kill Donna McLaughlin Schwender
Marbles E.N. Loizis
Communion Eamon Murphy
Hoisted By Your Own Petard Ed Spencer
The Heart Thieves Eleanor Talbot
THE MAN MET THE WOMAN Elisabeth Avery
Life Saving Skills Elisabeth Sennitt Clough
Flying Fish Elizabeth Peterson
The Pick-Me-Up Emma Bladen
The Phantom Pick-Me-Up Emma Bladen
Echoes Eran Wesselius
Promotion Eric Knight
Soup Eric Schellenberg
Dead Esther Newton
The Apple Farmer and the Bride Price Evelyn Adesida
Going back Francis Hayes
Awkardness Francis Mulhern
A Train Gabriel Flynn
Death of a Hairless Man gavin vance
The Fix Up George Harrar
Re: holes Gerry Dorrian
Re: holes Gerry Dorrian
The Way He Made Tea Ginny Horton
Mr. Words Grant Gerald Miller
The Oarsman Greg Spracklin
Rat on a Roll Hannah van Didden
School Bus Hanne Winkler
Wise to the Hard Facts Hermina Burns
Baobab Hilary McGrath
Introduction Ian Harrison
Pickled Idris Nook
Message in a Milk Bottle Izabella Grace
Just one more thing from a long list of many Jacqueline P Haskell
The Audience Jacquelyn Schneller
Projections Jane Peranteau
Master Genus Jane Williams
A Better Husband Jane Williams
Parched Jeanette Sheppard
Betty Jennifer Burke
Corpus Jennifer McGrath Kent
Shadow Joal Hetherington
Moon Garden Joal Hetherington
Beyond Joan Renino
French Vanilla Joan Renino
August 1961, Berlin Joanna Campbell
Elinor, Who Does Not Kneel Joanna Pocock
The Same Backwards Joe Evans
Untethered John D Kelly
The Darkness John Ingrisano
Tease John Robinson
A Little Tin John Stockdill
Fifty Three Seconds Jonas Kubitscheck
About the Author Joy Manne
The Lottery Jude Higgins
Little machine guns, not yet silenced Judy Birkbeck
Friends Forever Judy Brownsword
Angel of Death Judy Brownsword
White Matter Julianna Holland
A marriage Kamalakshi Mehta
Changeling Kate Forlong
Icarus Katharine Brown
In the Long Dry Grass Kathy George
Setting Keeley Mansfield
Moment Kevin DeLuca
If The Spirit Moves You Kevin Leahy
Catching the Sun Kevin Scott
In a certain sense, the Good is comfortless Kimmo Rosenthal
Hawk Lani O’ Hanlon
Mass Grave, Ukraine Laura Lauth
CONTACT Laurie Murphy
Sand Snake Laurie Theurer
He Looked Into Her Eyes Len Lambrellis
Na zdrowie (Bless You) Liam Garnett
Just Like Mimi Linda Foster
Drunk Dad Fairy Linda Moser
The Rope Lisa Carey
French Toast Luan Goldie
Pedestrian Luke Temple
In The Drifts Luke Temple
Stirring Mackenzie Pitcairn
George Madeleine D’Arcy
EAT Maggie Veness
The Undertaker’s Eye Mandy de Waal
Aide Memoire for A Long Distance Swimmer Mandy de Waal
A Fist of Dreaming Stones Mandy de Waal
Unfinished Business marc littman
Poetry in Paris Marcella O’Sullivan
Oryza sativa Marcy Rae Henry
To tao Marcy Rae Henry
The Analyst Margaret Ries
Oh Brother Marie McAleer
The Tourist Mark Arnold
On the seventh day She created bananas Mark Fiddes
High Tech Hemingway Mark Scott
Home Safe mary healy
Flight Mary Jane Gomm
The Monster Matilda Colarossi
If Found, Call Me Immediately Matthew Villarreal
Flood Maura O’Brien
Good neighbours maureen flynn
The Visit Maureen Harkin
Eleanor Meri Spencer
These People Michael Connon
The Heat and Quickness Michael Culbertson
AAAA Moon vampire Michael Morrissey
FOOD OF LOVE Michelle Allford
The Knitters Michelle GAllen
Breakdown Michelle Wright
Troubled Waters Migel Jayasinghe
To Sleep Mike Greenhough
Winner alright Mike Mahon
Mother Runs Natalie Newman
100 lbs. Natasha Mackey
The Frog Clan Neil Tarpey
Mondays and Fridays nickie lambrinakou
Size 10 (UK) Nicola Silke
Alexander Nicolas Niarchos
End of the Bar Noel Wills
Jack Orla Donoghue
Something Less than Couth Oscar Windsor-Smith
Johnny Lost his Head…..Again. Pablo Handriko
Jack and the Bankstalk Pablo Handriko
Appointment Pablo Handriko
Hereafter Parrish Young
Rich Pickings Pat O’Shea
Preparing The Vegetables Pat O’Shea
The Lineup Patricia Jackson
An Amoral Tale patricia kane
Daddy Patrick Byrne
Ocean View Patrick Curran
Elevator #1 Paul Freedman
Elevator #3 Paul Freedman
Bit By Bit Pauline Brown
The People’s Wok Pauline Brown
Me & Dixie Peeta Marie Reynolds
Tommy Needs a Woman Peeta Marie Reynolds
Something Loud Peter Ryan
Majesty Petra Perkins
They Do This to Prove How Air Pressure Can Create Lift as Long as there is an Angle of Attack Rachel Fenton
Cityscape Rachel Peters
Drone Ray Dolphin
In Rain Raymond Gohery
An Island Harvest Raymond Gohery
Cost For Death, Life Raymond Webb
Satiation rebecca rebecca
I Do/Two Syllables rebecca rebecca
Counting Cassiopeia rebecca rebecca
On School Days Rhoda Greaves
Little Swan Rhoda Greaves
Fall for Me Rhoda Greaves
A Sad Circle of Gold Rhonda Collis
Enough to Wake the Dead Richard Bond
Counting Richard Reitzfeld
The Duck Man Richard Reitzfeld
A Dish Served Cold Rina Piccolo
First Robert Grossmith
Satsuma Roger Kirkpatrick
Avon calling Roger Vickery
Heart By-pass roisin hogge
HIM Roisín O’Donnell
The Science of Forgetting Roisín O’Donnell
The Holland Metaphor Rose West
Mary’s Cake Roy Davimes
Payback Ruby Speechley
A Theory of Relativity Sally Ashton
Shauna’s List Sandra Danby
Teenage Sniper seamus scanlon
Levelling-Up sean coffey
Compulsory Mourning – 1944 Sheila Llewellyn
When The Power Went Simon Cornish
ONLINE DATING Sohrab Fracis
I Say Things Stefanie Pfammatter
Menu Stephen Percival
Overture to Expo Stephen Smith
To the Daughter of Saint Gawain Steve Wiley
Night Dance of the Wild Kings Steve Wiley
Delphine Sue Crowder
BEGUILED Susan A Eames
Care Susan Howe
Two dogs Susanne Stich
Bestiary Susanne Stich
The Therapist’s Dilemma Tamara Jones
Last Saturday’s Dream Tamara Jones
Arrival Thivakaran Narayanan
Bettie Thivakaran Narayanan
WISTERIA THOUGHTS trish leake
Veneers Ursula Mallows
Three Flash fiction stories Ute Carson
Excuse for a Criminal Val Melhop
A Connection Valerie Ryan
Monster Vanessa Savage
MY SISTER Veronica Bright
THE INTERIM FLOOR Vitaly Olshevsky
Unfair Attention wendy Price
Wake Up Wiebo Grobler
Pie Wiebo Grobler
Defence Case William Davidson
The Quarry William Davison
Passport Control Yasmin Khan Murgai
Saving Habi Yvonne Jackson
The Pass Zoe Green

Fish Books

Fish Anthology 2023

Fish Anthology 2023

… a showcase of disquiet, tension, subversion and surprise …
so many skilled pieces … gem-like, compressed and glinting, little worlds in entirety that refracted life and ideas … What a joy!
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… memoirs pinpointing precise
feelings of loss and longing and desire.
– Sean Lusk

What a pleasure to watch these poets’ minds at work, guiding us this way and that.
– Billy Collins


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Fish Anthology 2022

‘… delightful, lively send-up … A vivid imagination is at play here, and a fine frenzy is the result.’ – Billy Collins
‘… laying frames of scenic detail to compose a lyric collage … enticing … resonates compellingly. … explosive off-screen drama arises through subtly-selected detail. Sharp, clever, economical, tongue-in-cheek.’ – Tracey Slaughter


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Fish Anthology 2021

Fish Anthology 2021

Brave stories of danger and heart and sincerity.
Some risk everything outright, some are desperately quiet, but their intensity lies in what is unsaid and off the page.
These are brilliant pieces from bright, new voices.
A thrill to read.
~ Emily Ruskovich


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Fish Anthology 2020

Fish Anthology 2020

I could see great stretches of imagination. I saw experimentation. I saw novelty with voice and style. I saw sentences that embraced both meaning and music. ~ Colum McCann


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Fish Anthology 2019

These glorious pieces have spun across the globe – pit-stopping in Japan, the Aussie outback, Vancouver, Paris, Amsterdam and our own Hibernian shores – traversing times past, present and imagined future as deftly as they mine the secret tunnels of the human heart. Enjoy the cavalcade. – Mia Gallagher


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Fish Anthology 2019

Fish Anthology 2018

The standard is high, in terms of the emotional impact these writers managed to wring from just a few pages. – Billy O’Callaghan

Loop-de-loopy, fizz, and dazzle … unique and compelling—compressed, expansive, and surprising. – Sherrie Flick

Every page oozes with a sense of place and time. – Marti Leimbach

Energetic, dense with detail … engages us in the act of seeing, reminds us that attention is itself a form of praise. – Ellen Bass


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Fish Anthology 2017

Fish Anthology 2017

Dead Souls has the magic surplus of meaning that characterises fine examples of the form – Neel Mukherjee
I was looking for terrific writing of course – something Fish attracts in spades, and I was richly rewarded right across the spectrum – Vanessa Gebbie
Really excellent – skilfully woven – Chris Stewart
Remarkable – Jo Shapcott


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Fish Anthology 2016

The practitioners of the art of brevity and super-brevity whose work is in this book have mastered the skills and distilled and double-distilled their work like the finest whiskey.


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Sunrise Sunset by Tina Pisco

Sunrise Sunset

€12  (incl. p&p)   Sunrise Sunset by Tina Pisco Read Irish Times review by Claire Looby Surreal, sad, zany, funny, Tina Pisco’s stories are drawn from gritty experience as much as the swirling clouds of the imagination.  An astute, empathetic, sometimes savage observer, she brings her characters to life. They dance themselves onto the pages, […]


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Fish Anthology 2015

Fish Anthology 2015

How do we transform personal experience of pain into literature? How do we create and then chisel away at those images of others, of loss, of suffering, of unspeakable helplessness so that they become works of art that aim for a shared humanity? The pieces selected here seem to prompt all these questions and the best of them offer some great answers.
– Carmen Bugan.


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Fish Anthology 2014

Fish Anthology 2014

What a high standard all round – of craft, imagination and originality: and what a wide range of feeling and vision.
Ruth Padel

I was struck by how funny many of the stories are, several of them joyously so – they are madcap and eccentric and great fun. Others – despite restrained and elegant prose – managed to be devastating. All of them are the work of writers with talent.
Claire Kilroy


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Fish Anthology 2013

Fish Anthology 2013

The writing comes first, the bottom line comes last. And sandwiched between is an eye for the innovative, the inventive and the extraordinary.


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Fish Anthology 2012

A new collection from around the globe: innovative, exciting, invigorating work from the writers and poets who will be making waves for some time to come. David Mitchell, Michael Collins, David Shields and Billy Collins selected the stories, flash fiction, memoirs and poems in this anthology.


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Fish Anthology 2011

Reading the one page stories I was a little dazzled, and disappointed that I couldn’t give the prize to everybody. It’s such a tight format, every word must count, every punctuation mark. ‘The Long Wet Grass’ is a masterly bit of story telling … I still can’t get it out of my mind.
– Chris Stewart


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Fish Anthology 2010

The perfectly achieved story transcends the limitations of space with profundity and insight. What I look for in fiction, of whatever length, is authenticity and intensity of feeling. I demand to be moved, to be transported, to be introduced into other lives. The stories I have selected for this anthology have managed this. – Ronan Bennett, Short Story Judge.


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Fish Anthology 2009 – Ten Pint Ted

I sing those who are published here – they have done a very fine job. It is difficult to create from dust, which is what writers do. It is an honour to have read your work. – Colum McCann


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Fish Anthology 2008 – Harlem River Blues

The entries into this year’s Fish Short Story Prize were universally strong. From these the judges have selected winners, we believe, of exceptional virtue. – Carlo Gebler


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Fish Anthology 2007

I was amazed and delighted at the range and quality of these stories. Every one of them was interesting, well-written, beautifully crafted and, as a short-story must, every one of them focused my attention on that very curtailed tableau which a short-story necessarily sets before us. – Michael Collins


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Fish Anthology 2006 – Grandmother, Girl, Wolf and Other Stories

These stories voice all that is vibrant about the form. – Gerard Donovan. Very short stories pack a poetic punch. Each of these holds its own surprise, or two. Dive into these seemingly small worlds. You’ll come up anew. – Angela Jane Fountas


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All the King’s Horses – Anthology of Historical Short Stories

Each of the pieces here has been chosen for its excellence. They are a delightfully varied assortment. More than usual for an anthology, this is a compendium of all the different ways that fiction can succeed. I invite you to turn to ‘All the King’s Horses’. The past is here. Begin.
– Michel Faber


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Fish Anthology 2005 – The Mountains of Mars and Other Stories

Literary anthologies, especially of new work, act as a kind of indicator to a society’s concerns. This Short Story collection, such a sharp and useful enterprise, goes beyond that. Its internationality demonstrates how our concerns are held in common across the globe. – Frank Delaney


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Fish Anthology 2004 – Spoonface and Other Stories

From the daily routine of a career in ‘Spoonface’, to the powerful, recurring image of a freezer in ‘Shadow Lives’. It was the remarkable focus on the ordinary that made these Fish short stories such a pleasure to read. – Hugo Hamilton


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Feathers & Cigarettes

In a world where twenty screens of bullshit seem to be revolving without respite … there is nothing that can surpass the ‘explosion of art’ and its obstinate insistence on making sense of things. These dedicated scribes, as though some secret society, heroically, humbly, are espousing a noble cause.
– Pat McCabe


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Franklin’s Grace

It’s supposed to be a short form, the good story, but it has about it a largeness I love. There is something to admire in all these tales, these strange, insistent invention. They take place in a rich and satisfying mixture of places, countries of the mind and heart. – Christopher Hope


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Asylum 1928

There are fine stories in this new anthology, some small and intimate, some reaching out through the personal for a wider, more universal perspective, wishing to tell a story – grand, simple, complex or everyday, wishing to engage you the reader. – Kate O’Riodan


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Five O’Clock Shadow

I feel like issuing a health warning with this Fish Anthology ­ these stories may seriously damage your outlook – Here the writers view the world in their unique way, and have the imagination, talent, and the courage to refine it into that most surprising of all art forms ­ the short story. – Clem Cairns.


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From the Bering Strait

Every story in this book makes its own original way in the world. knowing which are the telling moments, and showing them to us. And as the narrator of the winning story casually remarks, ‘Sometimes its the small things that amaze me’ – Molly McCloskey


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Scrap Magic

The stories here possess the difference, the quirkiness and the spark. They follow their own road and their own ideas their own way. It is a valuable quality which makes this collection a varied one. Read it, I hope you say to yourself like I did on many occasions, ‘That’s deadly. How did they think of that?’ – Eamonn Sweeney


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Dog Day

Really good short stories like these, don’t read like they were written. They read like they simply grew on the page. – Joseph O’Connor


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The Stranger

The writers in this collection can write short stories . . . their quality is the only thing they have in common. – Roddy Doyle


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The Fish Garden

This is the first volume of short stories from Ireland’s newest publishing house. We are proud that fish has enabled 15 budding new writers be published in this anthology, and I look forward to seeing many of them in print again.


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12 Miles Out – a novel by Nick Wright

12 Miles Out was selected by David Mitchell as the winner of the Fish Unpublished Novel Award.
A love story, thriller and historical novel; funny and sad, uplifting and enlightening.


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Altergeist – a novel by Tim Booth

You only know who you can’t trust. You can’t trust the law, because there’s none in New Ireland. You can’t trust the Church, because they think they’re the law. And you can’t trust the State, because they think they’re the Church And most of all, you can’t trust your friends, because you can’t remember who they were anymore.


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Small City Blues numbers 1 to 51 – a novel by Martin Kelleher

A memoir of urban life, chronicled through its central character, Mackey. From momentary reflections to stories about his break with childhood and adolescence, the early introduction to the Big World, the discovery of romance and then love, the powerlessness of ordinary people, the weaknesses that end in disappointment and the strengths that help them seek redemption and belonging.


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The Woman Who Swallowed the Book of Kells – Collection of Short Stories by Ian Wild

Ian Wild’s stories mix Monty Python with Hammer Horror, and the Beatles with Shakespeare, but his anarchic style and sense of humour remain very much his own in this collection of tall tales from another planet. Where else would you find vengeful organs, the inside story of Eleanor Rigby, mobile moustaches, and Vikings looting a Cork City branch of Abracababra?


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News & Articles

Story Prize 2023: Long-list

17th March 2024
On behalf of all of us at Fish, congratulations to all of you who made the long list.  The short-list and final results will not be published until 10th April. This is due to unforeseen circumstances and we apologise for any inconvenience that it causes. To preserve the anonymous nature of the judging, we are […]

Launch of the Fish Anthology 2023

12th July 2023
Tuesday 11th July saw the launch of the 2023 Anthology in the Maritime Hotel, Bantry. Nineteen of the fourty authors published in the anthology were there to read from their piece, travelling from Australia, USA and from all corners of Europe.             Read about the Anthology More photos of the […]

Poetry Prize 2023: RESULTS

15th May 2023
  Winners Short-list Long-list     Winners: Here are the 10 winners, as chosen by judge Billy Collins, to be published in the FISH ANTHOLOGY 2023. The Anthology will  be launched as part of the West Cork Literary Festival, (The Maritime Hotel, Bantry, West Cork – Tuesday 11th July – 18.00.) All are welcome! Second […]

Flash Fiction Prize 2023: RESULTS

10th April 2023
Winners Short-list Long-list   From all of us at Fish, thank you for entering your flashes. So many gems deserving of a readership have left their imprint on the Fish editors and judge, Kit de Waal. It was an honour to read them all. Congratulations to the writers whose Flash Stories were short or long-listed, […]

Short Memoir Prize: Results 2023

31st March 2023
Winners Short-list Long-list   On behalf of all of us at Fish, we congratulate the 10 winners who made it to the Fish Anthology 2023, and to those writers who made the long and short-lists, well done too.  Thank you to Sean Lusk, for the time and enthusiasm that he put into selecting the winners. (About […]

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