The
best Fish Publishing - Alumni
For a long time now we at Fish have thought about ways of honouring the many, many writers who have contributed to the Fish Short Story Prize over the last decade and more, and whose short stories have appeared in our annual anthologies. The idea of this Alumni Page is to try to keep track of them and to see how they have fared on the literary scene since we knew them here in West Cork.
Below are articles on a large number of authors who have appeared
in the Fish Anthologies. We hope you enjoy reading them, as much as
we have enjoyed compiling them. Also, if you are an author who has
featured in our short story anthologies and you would like to be part
of this page, just get in touch with us here at Fish. We’d be
delighted to hear from you and to add you to our Alumni page.
If you are a previous finalist in one of our writing contests we would
love to include you on our Alumni page. Please write to us at alumni
and let us know what you have been up to.
Marc Phillips – overall winner of the 2004 Fish Short Story Prize
Marc Phillips (Winner:Fish Short Story Prize 2004 with “The Mountains of Mars”), was named Notable Writer of the Year in 2004, and has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and inclusion in Best American Short Stories anthologies. In 2007, his “Caye Caulker Tides” placed in the Fish/Crime Writers Association Fish-Knife Award, and “Different Than Any Day So Far” received editor’s choice in the Raymond Carver Short Story
Matthew Sweeney, Seamus Heaney & the winner of the 11th Fish Short Story Prize Marc Phillips at the West Cork Literary Festival 2005.
Contest. He regularly publishes fiction, poetry, articles and essays in the US and abroad.
Telegram Books will release Marc’s debut novel, Fifty Stone Men , in the Spring of 2009 (edited by Kate Gould).
Paul Blaney
Paul was a finalist in the 2003 Fish Short Story Prize, with his story Man In a Wardrobe. This was published in the 2004 Fish Anthology, Spoonface & Other Stories. His two most recent stories have appeared in the 2004 and 2005 anthologies from Biscuit Publishing. He has recently shifted his base of operations to New Jersey (which turns out to be much like The Sopranos) while continuing to co-organise Tales of the DeCongested www.decongested.com a monthly short story reading event at Foyles bookshop in London. Work goes on with his novel, Breeders, with frequent time-outs to make money and write short stories.
Celia Bryce
Celia
Bryce writes short stories and drama. Her short fiction has featured
in Stand Magazine; The Cork Literary Review; and The Mail on Sunday
amongst others. She has had a number of stories broadcast on Radio
4 and is a core fiction contributor to Women’s Weekly. Headlines
and Other Growing Pains (Biscuit Publishing) is a collection of her
short fiction and is due for publication in October 2005.
Her radio play The Skategrinder (based on Skateblades published in
the Fish Anthology 2000) won The Richard Imison Award, 2003. She
has written drama for children, for medical education purposes and
her short play, Magpies, was performed throughout the summer of 2005
at the Beehive Theatre, Dingle, County Kerry.
She has an MA in Creative Writing and was Writer in Residence for the MA 2003-2004 at Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne. She is currently working on a children’s novel.
Cliff Chen
Stewed
chicken with rice and peas, is how he’d describe his childhood
in Trinidad. Formative and mouth-watering. Schooled in Ireland, where
he took time out from a medical degree to begin writing seriously, he
gained publication in Black Rose Issue 1 (1998), 3rd Prize in the Golden
Pen Award (1999) and was published in the Fish 2002 Anthology (Rainflies).
He has also been short- and long-listed in other competitions; including
Fish (2001, 2004) and the Irish News International Short-story competition
(1999) He has written 2 novels and has just graduated with a first class
Honours Degree in Psychology from Edinburgh University. (Together with
a British Psychology Society prize for Undergraqduate Psychology.)
All Cliff's stories now come with 10% extra psychoanalysis – free
of charge.
Polly Clark
She
is a poet and the author of two poetry collections. Her second, Take
Me With You, is published by Bloodaxe in November 2005 and is short
listed for the TS Eliot Prize and is a Poetry Book Society Choice.
Since being a finalist in the 2004 Fish competition she has been commissioned by Comma Press to write a series of linked short stories for an anthology which will be published in April 2006. To see more of Polly's work go to her website: www.pollyclark.co.uk
Linda Cracknell
Life
Drawing launched my writing career - it was shortlisted for the 1998
Fish Short Story Prize but had to be withdrawn because it won the
Macallan/Scotland on Sunday short story competition in 1998. It was
my first published story. In 2000 it became the title story of my
short story collection published by Neil Wilson’s 11:9 imprint
which was shortlisted for the Saltire First Book Award. Since then
I have written two plays for Radio 4, had a go at writing a novel
(unfinished) and have nearly completed a second collection of short
stories. From late 2002 to late 2005, I have been writer in residence
at the poet Hugh MacDiarmid’s last home – Brownsbank cottage,
south of Edinburgh. The writing life in its varying incarnations of
readings, running workshops, and writing articles has also taken me
to New York, Nairobi, and Norway!
Selma Dabbagh
For me, it all started with Fish.
Fish published the first piece of fiction I wrote, Aubergine, having been selected as a Finalist for the 2004 Prize. I was a Finalist (and Editor's Choice) again in 2005 with Beirut-Paris-Beirut , a story that Fish also nominated for the Pushcart Prize. That year English PEN selected me as their nominee for the David TK Wong Prize for Short Fiction 2005. My work has also appeared in Qissat, Short Stories by Palestinian Women J. Glanville (ed.) (2006, Telegram) and several of my stories are scheduled to be published in anthologies in 2007, including the British Council publication New Writing 15 M. Gee and B. Evaristo (eds.) (forthcoming June 2007, Granta).
Paul Bassett Davies
Paul
was shortlisted for the 2004 Fish Short Story Prize and the One Page
Story Prize. Both his stories, Tommy the Voice and Imaginary Friend
for Hire, feature in the current Fish Anthology. He recently wrote the
screenplay for the feature animation film The Magic Roundabout and is
currently writing the screenplay for a film starring 1960’s counterculture
heroes, The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, featuring Fat Freddy’s
Cat. Paul founded the Crystal Theatre, acclaimed for pioneering multimedia
work in the 1970s and 80s. Two of his one-man shows were Perrier Award
finalists at the Edinburgh Festival. He has written for television,
radio and the stage, directed stage productions, short films and music
videos, and been a radio producer. He was the vocalist in punk band
Shoes For Industry. He has also worked as a minicab driver, a gardener,
and a DJ in a strip club. He is a ventriloquist with his own doll (Sailor
Boy).
Carys Davies
Carys Davies won second prize in the inaugural 2002 Orange/
Harpers&Queen short story competition and second prize in the 2005
Asham Award. She was a runner-up in the 2005 Bridport Prize and in the
2006 Fish Short Histories Competition.
Other stories were short-listed for the 2005 Fish Short Histories Competition and the 2006 Fish One-Page Prize.
Her stories have appeared in prize anthologies, in 'The London Magazine'
and in various U.S. literary magazines. Her first short story collection,
'Some New Ambush' is due out in October from Salt.
( www.saltpublishing.com ).
She lives in Lancaster with her husband and four children .
Katy Darby
What Katy did next ...
Since coming third in the Fish Short Story Prize 2003, Katy has placed
in several more short story and poetry competitions, including the Royal
Society of Literature's V.S. Pritchett Prize, and has had her stories
published in Carvezine (Sepia, www.carvezine.com, January 2005 issue),
Pulp.net (The King of Hearts, www.pulp.net, June 2005 issue) and the
New Writer magazine. Samuel French have also published two of her plays,
Open Secrets and Half-Life. She begins an MA in Creative Writing (Prose)
at the University of East Anglia in September 2005, where she will hopefully
complete her second novel.
Stephanie Dickinson
She
has lived in Iowa, Wyoming, Texas, Louisiana and now in New York. Her
poetry and fiction appear in Cream City Review, Green Mountain Review,
Chelsea, Descant, Sub-Terrain, Fourteen Hills, Nimrod, Iron Horse Review,
Inkwell, Ontario Review, Water Stone, Columbia Journal, McGuffin, among
others Along with Rob Cook, she publishes and edits the literary journal
Skidrow Penthouse.
Her Half Girl recently won the Hackney Award (Birmingham-Southern) for best unpublished novel of 2002. It will be published this year by Spuyten Duyvil. Fire Maidens was third place winner in Fish Publishing’s 2004 short story contest, and SWINE PRINCESS was a finalist in Fish’s 2005 first novel contest. In October her story A Lynching in Stereoscope will be reprinted in BEST AMERICAN 2005 NONREQUIRED READING edited by Dave Eggers.
Mia Gallagher
Mia
Gallagher was delighted that her story, Found Wanting, was included
in the 2002 Fish Anthology as Editor’s Choice – and even
more delighted the following year when, All Bones, was chosen as a
runner-up. Since then she’s had another story featured in Carve
Magazine and in November 2004 secured a deal with Penguin Ireland
for her first novel, HellFire – due to land on all good bookshelves
in September 2006. Most recently she won the Start Chapbook Fiction
competition; three of her stories (including All Bones) will be published
in a limited-edition volume in October 2005. Mia is now working on
her second novel.
David Gardiner
My
story "Letting Go" was the second prize winner in 2002. It
centred on a confrontation between an elderly former Nazi war criminal
and a man who had dedicated his life to hunting him down, for reasons
that turn out to be more complex than they at first appear.
Being among the prize winners affected my life in two ways. Firstly
there was the social and personal side. It led to my "coming out
of the closet" as a writer, meeting other writers, making acquaintances
and forming friendships, and gaining the confidence to think of myself
as one of the worldwide community of people afflicted with this compulsion
to tell stories. This began at the award ceremony in Bantry, but continued
into my week at Anam Cara and my life in London afterwards. It changed
my self-image and gave me the permission to take myself a little more
seriously as a writer.
Secondly, and consequently, other people began to take my writing
more seriously, and at the beginning of this year the small press publisher
Bluechrome/Boho in Bristol accepted for publication a collection of
twenty-three of my short stories under the title "The Rainbow Man
and Other Stories". Reviews for this collection have been very
positive, but sales have been slow. Everybody tells me that it is almost
impossible to sell short stories, but that is what I actually want to
write.
Vanessa Gebbie
Vanessa Gebbie won Second Prizes at both Fish and Bridport in 2007.
Her First Prizes include Per Contra (USA), The Daily Telegraph, Willesden
Herald, Guildford Book Festival, The Paddon Award andCadenza Magazine.
Her short stories have been widely published, anthologised, translated into several languages, broadcast on BBC radio and handed out on London Underground.
She has won awards for flash fiction, and regularly judges literary short fiction competitions.
Her debut collection is Words
from a Glass Bubble (Salt Publishing 2008). A collection of
flash fiction, Mood Swings is forthcoming in 2009.
She says: “Nothing packs quite the same punch as well written short
short stories. Their potential to amaze both writer and reader
is immeasurable.”
Other competition successes include First Prizes in the 2007 Paddon
Award at Exeter University, (Judge Rory MacLean), Willesden Prize 2006
(Judge: Zadie Smith), Asham/Charleston Small Wonder Festival Slam 2006,
Guildford Book Festival/BBC Southern Counties 2006 (Judges: Jane Wenham-Jones
and Elizabeth Buchan), Cotswold Prize 2005 (Judge: Katie Fforde), Cadenza
Magazine 2005,. and Runner Up Prizes in Fish One Page 2006, Flashquake
2007, Good Housekeeping Magazine 2004 and 2005 (Judge: Alexander McCall
Smith).
Her work has been long listed for The Bridport Prize, short listed twice
for the Fish Short Story Prize, and for the Asham Award. It won a Highly
Commended Prize in the London 'Writers of the Year Competition' 2006.
Her work has been broadcast by the BBC, and distributed on London Underground
by Litro. She teaches Creative Writing, and particularly enjoys working
with those on society's margins. She has her own magazine for writing
by those whose lives have been touched by addiction, at www.tomsvoicemagazine.com
.
Her first novel is gestating. For further information: www.vanessagebbie.com
Áine Greaney
Born
and brought up on a remote farm in Co. Mayo, Ireland, Áine moved
to the U.S. in 1986. After living in upstate NY, where she completed
a Master’s in English, she now lives and writes in Newburyport,
Massachusetts.
Áine has taught creative writing at various locations, including
Boston’s Emerson College, Governor Dummer Academy, at the Frank
O’Connor Festival of the Short Story, County Cork, Ireland, and
at the Irish Arts Week, East Durham, N.Y. She is also a frequent public
speaker, presenting at colleges, libraries and healthcare facilities.
In September 2005, she has been selected as the writer in residence
at Chester College.
Her novel, The Big House, was published (June ’03) by TownHouse,
Dublin and Simon & Schuster, U.K. It was released in the U.S. in
spring 2004. Her personal essays and short fiction have been published
in a range of U.S and Irish literary journals and anthologies, such
as Creative Nonfiction, The Literary Review, Books Ireland, Cyphers,
IMAGE Magazine, Irish Girls are Back in Town,The Sunday Tribune, The
Fish Anthology 2002 and Natural Bridge. She has also published articles
and features in various newspapers and magazines. Currently, she is
the literary columnist for PortFolio Arts magazine. Her second novel,
Dance Lessons, is under consideration at a New York agency. She is also
compiling a collection of personal or creative non-fiction essays, In
This Country, with paintings and sketches by the late Australian artist,
Stephen Clark.
Her writing awards, recognition and shortlists include the 2002 Fish
Short Story Prize, 2000 Frank O’Connor Short Fiction Award (grand
prize winner), the Irish News, the Steinbeck and the Hennessy Award
for New Irish Writing.
Áine's story can be read in our Short
Stories to Read Online pages
Jules Horne
Currently working as Virtual Writing Fellow for Dumfries & Galloway Arts Association, and finishing a play commission for the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh. www.texthouse.net and www.writerinthestorm.blogspot.com Shortlisted for the Fish Short Story Prize 2002.Karl Iagnemma
was overall winner of the Fish Short Story Prize 1997 with his story Dog Days. His book of short stories, On the Nature of Human Romantic Interaction, was published in 2003 by the Dial Press. The book's title story is currently being developed as a feature film by Warner Brothers Pictures. Karl's short stories have received numerous awards, including the Paris Review Plimpton Prize, first place in the Playboy college fiction contest, and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. His writing has appeared in Tin House, SEED, One Story, and Zoetrope, and been anthologized in the Best American Short Stories, The Best American Erotica, and Pushcart Prize collections. Karl currently works as a research scientist in the mechanical engineering department at the M.I.T. He’s completing a novel about an ill-fated scientific expedition to upper Michigan in the 1840s. He is currently one of the judges of the Fish Short Story Prize 2005
Rosemary Jenkinson
Since
being in the Fish Anthology 2003, Rosemary Jenkinson has had a collection
of short stories published, Contemporary Problems Nos 53 & 54,
by Lagan Press in 2004 and has been commissioned to write a play for
Rough Magic Theatre Company. She has also, fortunately, broken free
of the Civil Service.
Ann Jolly
I've
continued to be involved as a writer in various prisons - Dartmoor,
Winchester, Lewes and Wealstun where there is a culture of poetry and
people create whole worlds with no more than pen and paper and what
is inside their heads - as all writers do. With the prisoners we uncovered
raw truths, mined lived-in lives and explored what it is like to hit
rock bottom and come up again. This work confirmed for me that writing
is liberating and an agent of transformation.
I've also taught creative writing in two local universities but mostly, I've been writing my own stuff, some short stories and, of course, The Novel.
Rory Kilalea
Rory
has written in a desultory and sometimes compulsive fashion since
he was a kid some unmentionable years ago. He writes poetry (finally
published) short stories, (published) plays (performed), films (some
made), radio scripts (dreadful) and anything that tries to make money,
but never really does. He thinks that he may have it cracked with
his novel called the 'Disappointed Diplomat'. This novel may get
him arrested for innuendo, depravity, slander and general self-abuse.
He has also written a series of children's folkloric books, which
are not selling well at all. When people actually do read his work,
they feel pity and give him awards- twice the Caine Prize for African
writing and of course the Fish nomination, which he was hoping to
win because he was in overdraft. He didn't. But the Fish nominated
story 'Zimbabwe Boy' launched Rory's flaccid career, and it has been
on the BBC as a radio play, and also at the African Festival in London
and then moved to the National Theatre in 2005. .But it got him into
terrible trouble , because as our president Mugabe has said on numerous
occasions, Zimbabwe is the only country in the world where there
were no homosexuals until the filthy white colonialists came and
infected them with their depravity and things like that.
Now, in-between his languishing in prison (with other depraved black
dissenters who remember our president from his heady days of same
sex incarceration),he teaches literature, writing and drama. The
reason is simple - he is too old to be a rent boy. Even Fish asked
him to teach writing in 2005, but there has been a terrible silence
ever since then. He also directs theatre- the latest being the fabulous
financial loss with five star reviews at the Edinburgh Festival called
Sing! Zimbabwe. He is thus re entering the Fish Prize and offering
45% of the prize money to the judges as an incentive.
Which comes to the kernel of this man. When he is serious and depressed,
he writes deeply meaningful stories ranging from gender discrimination,
sex and African farmers who have been thrown off their lands because
they did not like the blacks. When he has taken his pills, he writes
stories about black farmers who do not like the whites and throw
other black farmers off their land. He can be witty, sensuous, rude
and he is normally ejected from parties for drinking too much. He
is rather a weird chap, but than no Zimbabweans are normal.
Val G. Lee
I
live and write in Hastings. This autumn I have a novel published by
Onlywomen Press called Diary of a Provincial Lesbian’, which
reflects my life on the south coast. I also write a regular column
for the lesbian magazine, Velvet, and poetry and fiction reviews for
Diva’. I’ll be reading and running writing workshops at
the Proudwords Festival in Newcastle and the York Lesbian Arts Festival
in October.
www.vglee.co.uk
Pam Leeson
Since
being published in the Fish Anthology, From the Bering Strait in 1999,
I have won the BBC Alfred Bradley Award for radio writing with the play
There's Me, David, Chelsea, Charlene, Scott and Bianca. It was broadcast
in the same year. In 2001 had the play The Unbearable broadcast by BBC
Radio 4 and again by BBC Radio 7 in 2005.
In August 2005 my play A War in the Morning was put on at the Royal Exchange Studio in Manchester as part of their new writing season Blue. This was one of the monologues for which I received an Arts Council bursary to write a collection. I’ve almost finished writing them and will soon be looking to get them published. The joys! Still writing poems and stories and plays and half a novel. (Oh what iId give for the other half!) Still very pleased and proud to have been in a Fish publication. Merci.
Lily Mabura
Lily
Mabura is a Kenyan writer currently pursuing a PhD in Fiction and Africana
Literature at the University of Missouri-Columbia, USA . Her story "Man
in Ultramarine Pajamas" was a runner-up in the 2006 Fish Short Story
Prize and will be appearing in the 2007 Fish Anthology. Several of her
short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in literary journals
like PRISM international , Wasafiri , and G21
- The World's Magazine . Other publications include a novel, The
Pretoria Conspiracy (Focus Publishers, Nairobi , 2000), and three
children's books: Saleh Kanta and the Cavaliers (Phoenix Publications,
Nairobi , 2005), Seth the Silly Gorilla ( Phoenix , 2002),
and Ali the Little Sultan (Focus, 1999). She is currently
seeking an agent and publisher for her first short story collection
Sweet Sugarcane Secrets .
Sheila MacAvoy
Born
in New York City, a descendent of Famine Irish peasants who hit the
Big Apple in the 1850's; educated in local schools, eventually earning
a Law Degree. Worked in Los Angeles, California, as a lawyer in the
aerospace industry by day and wrote fiction by night, a thoroughly schizophrenic
existence. Published here and there, including appearance in the 1998
Fish Short Story Prize collection as a choice of the editor and their
Short Histories Anthology, All the King's Horses. Exit Aerospace. Some
stories are forming a chrysalis which, if subjected to the right temperature
and humidity, should morph into a Gold Rush saga, told through its many
dreamers, past and present. View from work table is of the pink and
white sandstone Santa Barbara Mission, a mile and a half distant, set
against the chaparral of the coast range.
Phillip MacCann
Phillip has been a critic for the Guardian and The Spectator. His writing has one a number of prizes including theShiva Naipaul Memorial Prize for travel writing. He wrote about Finland where he worked for the British Council. His highly acclaimed short-story collection, The Miracle Shed, received theRooney Prize for Irish Literature and he was selected by The Observer as one of the twenty-one writers of various disciplines from across the world, for the new millennium.
Marie MacSweeney
Published
in various outlets throughout Ireland including The Sunday Tribune,
Stet, Drumlin, Phoenix Irish Short Stories (1998) and Fish Publishing
(1996). Prize-winner in many national competitions and won the Francis
MacManus Short Story for Radio award in 2001 with a story called Dipping
into the Darkness.
In May 2004 I published a collection of short stories Our Ordinary World and Other Stories. My first poetry collection, Mother Cecily's Music Room was published by Lapwing, Belfast in May 2005. Louis and Louise Was shortlisted in the Fish Short Story Prize 1996 and published in the Anthology of that year, The Stranger and Other Stories.
Molly McCloskey - Winner of the Inaugural Fish Short Story Prize
Molly McCloskey was born in Philadelphia and grew up in Oregon.
She moved to Ireland in 1989. After having spent ten years on the
west coast of Ireland, she now resides in Dublin. She is the author
of two critically acclaimed short story collections - Solomon¹s Seal (Phoenix
House, 1997), and The Beautiful Changes (Lilliput Press, 2002). Her
short stories have won a number of prizes, including Ireland¹s
RTE/Francis MacManus Award and the inaugural Fish Short Story Award.
Her short fiction most recently appeared in the 2005 Faber anthology
Best Irish Short Stories. Her first novel, Protection, was published
by Penguin in 2005. Novelist Colum McCann has called Protection, "Funny,
intelligent, empathetic and disquieting all at once, Protection is
a fascinating debut novel.A comic dissection of
contemporary Ireland from one of our finest writers." Protection
will be published in Germany in 2006 by Steidl, along with a collection
of her short stories.
During the time she has lived in Ireland, she has worked as a free-lance
journalist, fiction writer and creative writing teacher. In 1996, she
co-founded, with two other women, the Sligo Rape Crisis Centre. In
2003, she was the recipient of the Ireland Fund of Monaco¹s bursary
and was writer-in-residence at the Princess Grace Irish Library in
Monaco. She is a regular contributor to the Irish Times and the Dublin
Review and is currently at work on her second novel
Morgan McDermott
A 2004-05 Illinois Arts Council Fellow in Prose, Morgan McDermott’s fiction has most recently won awards from the literary magazines Meridian, Swink, Speakeasy, The Bellingham Review, Phoebe, and a grant from the Association of Writers and Writing Programs. His story Tow was a finalist in the 2003 Fish Short Story Prize and was published in the Fish Anthology of that year, Fathers and Cigarettes & Other Stories. It also received the Dana Award for Short Fiction and will appear in issue #41 of the journal StoryQuarterly.
Andrew McIntyre
Originally
from Scotland, Andrew spent the first six years of his life in Johannesburg,
South Africa. Educated at numerous boarding schools, he attended universities
in Britain, Japan, and the United States. He holds masters degrees in
Economics and Comparative Literature.
Having travelled for much of his life, working at various times as a lecturer, sailor, construction worker, bookseller, and chocolatier, he currently resides in San Francisco. His story, Wet Dreams of a Dirty War, was a finalist in the 2001 Fish Short Story Prize. He has published stories in several magazines,most recently in The Taj Mahal Review, The Copperfield Review, PennyDreadful, Pindeldyboz, Babel, and Gold Dust Magazine.
Kath McKay
'Kath Mckay's story 'Bus' appeared in the 2005 Fish anthology. Since
then she has had a fan letter, published poetry in magazines
and anthologies, been shortlisted in two poetry competitions, given
performances with a graphic artist, reading her stories and poems
on the subject of teeth (once to an audience of dentists), been rejected
for a job she decided she didn't want, and a large grant she did.
She has continued to mentor African writing students online (www.crossingborders-africanwriting.org <http://www.crossingborders-africanwriting.org>
) and continued to craft short stories while devouring them alongside
crime novels. Her collaboration with Yorkshire and Finnish writers on
the theme of Water ( Interland ) www.intland.net <http://www.intland.net>
will result in a Smith-Doorstop publication in 2006.
The Fish anthology did not change her life. But that weekend in West
Cork had a luminous quality . She took an old friend to the launch.
The friend, bowled over by the Staircase to the Sky, and swans on Bantry
Bay, said 'I thought the Fish anthology would mean three people in the
back room of a pub. This is Something Else'. Frank Delaney commented
that everything about the Fish competition had the quality of 'grace'.
As a lover of Flannery O'Connor stories, Kath is deeply interested in
this quality. And knowing that some people thought she could write a
half decent story did renew Kath's confidence and faith in pursuing
her passion for short stories. She has written enough stories for a
collection. Now she just has to persuade a publisher '.
Geraldine Mills
Since
1997 when I was short-listed for the Fish Anthology ' Dog Days and
Other Stories', I have been swimming in a more favourable current.
I am learning to avoid those monofilaments of doubt that are forever
trying to ensnare me, and am getting my work to a more mainstream
audience.
Born in Galway , I moved to the east coast and lived there for 20
years before returning to the place where I was spawned, near the River
Corrib.
I now write both Poetry and short stories and have been published nationally
and internationally. My poetry has been awarded such prizes as the
Allingham Poetry Award, the Poem for Peace Award, the Scottish International
Poetry Award. The Cork Literary Review Prize for Poetry, the Dublin
Libraries Award among others. Bradshaw Books Cork has published my
two collections of poetry, Unearthing your own (2001) and Toil the
Dark Harvest (2004)
As wells as being shortlisted for the Fish Prize, my short stories
have won the Moore Medallion, The North Tipperary Award, the South
Tipperary Award (three times) Aspire Prize and have been three times
shortlisted for the Francis Mc. Manus Award, awarded second place in
2004.
I was the Millennium winner of the Hennessy Tribune Emerging Fiction
Award and overall winner of the New Irish Writer Award for the story
'Lick of the Lizard' which is the title of my first collection of short
stories recently published by Arlen House in which my 'Fish' story is
included.
I was awarded a Tyrone Guthrie Bursary from Galway County Council
in 2003 and my poetry has been part of a multi- media exhibition in
collaboration with artists Joan Hogan and Denise Hogan.
My novel 'Closetful of Hats' was short-listed for the 'Sitric Win
a Book Deal' 2004.
The rising tide brought my monologue "This is From the Woman who
Does" across the Atlantic to Cape Cod where it was premiered at the
Provincetown Theatre Playwrights' Festival 2004.
I am a regular contributor to RTE and Lyric FM.
Still a small fish in a big pond but managing to keeping afloat.
Tom Murray
Being
joint winner with 'Postcard from New York' of the 2005 One
Page Story competition gave me the opportunity of spending a great couple
of days at the West Cork Literary Festival. Recently I've
had a short play performed at the Arches
Theatre in Glasgow, and have just being appointed joint writer
in residence to Galashiels Academy. I continue to co edit the Eildon
Tree magazine, the literary magazine from the Scottish Borders.
My writing is divided between prose and drama, and putting together
a collection of poetry hopefully to be published next year. Take a
look at my website www.tommurray.org
Tom's story can be read in our Short
Stories to Read Online pages
Gina Ochsner - Winner 1999
Gina won our 1999 Short Story Prize. You could enter the 2005 - Details
on our Writing Contests page 
So
much has happened since 1999 when I sent that story into the Fish prize
contest. And so much of it has happened as a result of being published
with Fish. In fact, my agent, Julie Barer of Barer Literary, found From
the Bering Strait while trolling about and contacted Clem, who then
put us in touch. Julie and I have been working together ever since and
last May she sold the collection People I Wanted to Be to Houghton Mifflin
and then again to Portobello Press in London. Right now I'm at working
on a longer piece, a novel, and I am wavering between utter excitement
and terror. Right now excitement is winning out, but there are days
when I look in the mirror with horror and ask myself "what am I
doing??" That's when I take a coffee break and maybe tinker with
a short story, and then when I'm feeling more courageous, I go back
to the novel.
Gina's winning story can be read in our Short Stories to Read Online pages
Shereen Pandit
Awards:
Booktrust London (winner 2004)
Commonwealth Broadcasting Association (runner up 2003)
Fish Publications (runner up 1999)
Wordsworth magazine (winner 1997)
Young Writer magazine (2000 and 2001)
Short Stories published in magazines including:
Sable, Wordsworth, The Interpreter's House; Young Writer;
The Stinging Fly ; Lexicon ; First Word; Exiled Writer
Short Stories published in anthologies: Lines
in the Sand ((Francis Lincoln Publishers), Pretext (Pen & Inc Publishers),
From the Beiring Strait and Other Stories (Fish Publishing)
Forthcoming in 2005: contributions to Freedom Spring
and Whose Britain?
Membership of Writers' Organizations:
African Writers Abroad
PEN Writers in Prisons Committee
Exiled Writers Ink!
.
Rob Pateman
Rob
was born and grew up in Harold Hill, near Romford in Essex in 1962
although he now lives and writes in Kennington, south London.
For nearly twenty years Rob has worked as an advertising copywriter
but has long harboured dreams of shedding the ‘copy’ and
just being the writer.
He has written umpteen stories, fairy stories and poems some of which
made it out of the door and into various competitions. His joint second
place in the 2005 Fish One Page Story Competition is the first time
his work has got anywhere; inclusion in the 2005 Fish Anthology, The
Mountains of Mars & Other Stories, is also his first time in print.
This success has given him the confidence to revisit a novel he’s
had stashed in a draw for the last two years and which one day, he’d
like the people at Fish to give the once over.
Away from the keyboard (as he often is alas) Rob is mad about tennis
and dogs and revels in his quiet nights in with Boosie and Bella and
all the other ghosts and shadows.
Deirdre Shanahan
Prior
to my story "The Removal Man" being published in Dog Days
[ Fish Anthology 1997] I had work in several journals including Passport
and in thge U.S. The Massachusetts Review, Iowa Woman, and The Southern
Review and The Cimarron Review who featured several short stories as
part of an international section. I had won a major Eric Gregory Award
for a collection of poetry, "Legal Tender" subsequently published
by Enitharmon Press. I had read at Listowel Writers' Week and at Cuirt
Festival, Galway . One of my stories won The Irish Post/B.I. Competition,
judged by Shane Connaughton. I had also published a story in the anthology
"Well Sorted" from Serpent's Tail and been shortlisted for
the London Short Story Competition judged by Blake Morrison and Marina
Warner. A radio play, "Prussian Blue" was broadcast on RTE,
directed by Aidan Mathews.
Since being published in the Fish Anthology I have gone on to have stories published in several other coillections, including the Pheonix Anthology and the Kerry Anthology and to have poetry published in the Radio Waves Anthology, The White Page Anthology and "In Parallel" In 2005 I won a major award From Arts Council England and in 2006 was once again invited to teach on the Scriobh Summer School at Metropolitan University, London
Sarah Weir
Sarah has been published in literary magazines in England , New Zealand , Canada and Australia . She has been editor's choice for the Fish competition twice and won two short story competitions in New Zealand . She has also had four stories broadcast on Radio New Zealand . Currently she is working on a novel. A brief visit to New Zealand became a twelve year stay when she was waylaid by an unexpected holiday romance. The prominence of the short story in New Zealand allowed her to develop her writing. She works as a psychotherapist and lives in a crook of the Thames with her partner and two children
Adrian Wiestrich
Since
my One Page story appeared in the 2004 Fish Anthology, I've been very
busy with the launch of Kinsale Arts Week 2005, which took place in
July. We also helped launch the Kinsale Anthology, which was published
in July by Anam Press. All in all, the festival was a great success
and we're just starting work on the 2006 events. Unfortunately, the
creative writing group I was involved with has folded and I have certainly
missed the structure of writing every week for the classes. Business
at Kinsale Pottery is moving more towards weekend leisure breaks, and
this means working most weekends, but as with most artistic careers,
we have to take what we can get when it comes our way.
Robin's story can be read in our Short Stories to Read Online pages
Robin Winick
Since Mrs Purvis was published by Fish in 2000, one of my stories was published on Carve's Web site two years ago. I have not been published since -although I was for the third time a finalist in a Glimmer Train contest. Not only am I slow to send out stories but also my last four stories probably have been too political (though not didactic) for most literary magazines here. My anger at the Bush Administration (completely out of control) is permeating my life and my writing. I actually sit down at the computer to write a story, knowing, as I write, that it will not be published; yet the writing process has been cathartic and I enjoy it immensely. Fish publishes wonderful anthologies, and I shall continue to enter its contests. Robin's story can be read in our Short Stories to Read Online pages
Jacqueline Winn
Jacqui
Winn's short story "Salt and Pepper" appears in the 2006 Fish Publishing
Anthology "Grandmother, Girl, Wolf". Since she started writing short
story seven years ago, her work has been published in a number of anthologies
and literary magazines in Australia . She has won over 70 awards in
Australian literary competitions. In August 2006, a collection of Jacqui's
stories, entitled "Once More With Feeling" was published by Ginninderra
Press. All of the stories have won national literary awards over the
past few years and several have been published in other anthologies
and magazines.
Jacqui has written and produced several stage plays and acted in various stage and television productions. She also writes stage and screen plays on commission. She is also in constant demand to speak and run workshops on various aspects of writing and performance.
Although Jacqui was born in Londonderry , N. Ireland , she has lived
in Australia since the age of ten and currently lives on a farm on the
mid-North Coast, where she and her husband Brian run a small herd of
Hereford cattle.
Short Stories to read online
Read online some of the winning entries from previous Fish Anthologies. These are examples of the calibre that win the Fish Short Story Prize. Short Stories to read online
Writing Short Stories
Our new Writing feature provides some suggestions on the art of story writing. The page is designed to provide writers with on-going, constructive information about how other authors achieved success with writing short fiction. For more information visit our Writing Short Stories page.
Online Book Shop
You can buy Fish Publishing's Anthologies of short stories on-line in our online book shop – The Fish Shop.
Online Entry
Our Fish-On-Line online entry system provides a convenient way to enter our contests on the web. Register as an online Fish author and you can enter current and forthcoming Writing Contests. Writers may also enter any of our competitions by post. See our Writing Contests page for full details
Writing Contests - Assistance
Fish Publishing offers an Editorial Consultancy and Critique Service. designed to provide writers thinking of entering writing competitions with constructive feedback on their work, whether it is a complete novel or just the beginnings. The Service is available to writers prior to entering the Fish writing competitions.