WINNERS Fish Flash Fiction Prize 2015

FIRST
Trashfish by Chloe Wilson
SECOND
Transformation by Nicholas Ruddock
THIRD
Forwards, Backwards, Sideways by Jackie Burgoyne

HONORARY MENTIONS:
Land of Stones   by Mark Smith
Boy by Robert Barrett
Comrades by Charlie Weaver Rolfe
The Ride   by Rucha Modak
Tiffy   by Nancy Ludmerer
Wreck   by Mark Sutz
TV VS Walking by Katerina Protopsaltis

SHORTLIST Fish Flash Fiction Prize 2015

93 flash stories shortlisted
(1285 flash stories submitted in total)

Miracle	Adam Tamashasky
Third Course	Alan Cole
WHEN YOU WISH UPON A STAR	Alex Reece Abbott
A FREE LUNCH	Alex Reece Abbott
SOMETHING SWEET TO FINISH	Alex Reece Abbott
The Gentleman	Alistair Daniel
Shooting Season	Allison Browning
#Teaching Moment	Ann-Marie Jerman
Penelope	Anna McGrail
Shadows and Dreams	Annette Bower
The Little Girl Inside Me	Beata Anna Fijalkowska
Ivy	Bernadette Gallagher
GOTCHA	Breda Nathan
THE RIDE	Brynn Carroll
You Should Have Known	Calysta Sylvester
I might go to Spain	Carol Jones
Not so Flash	Carrie Beckwith
The Final	Celine West
The soul is symphonic (Little Red Riding Hood in midlife)	Ceridwen Buckmaster
Comrades	Charlie Weaver Rolfe
Trash Fish	chloe wilson
Making a Man	christina Sanders
Horny Toad	Colin Houghton
Winter	Crystal Huynh
She Nose	Dave Joy
The Comedy	David Armstrong
A Small Price	David Steward
Life in Lost Canyon	Dawn Lowe
Why	Dawn Lowe
A Small Inconvenience	Denise Drespling
When Lorca Broke My Heart	Devon Ronner
Too Close for Comfort	E.L Norry
The Muse	Emily Devane
A Taste for Rednecks	Ericka Olsen Stefano
The Flute	Evelyn Walsh
Family Holidays	Gillian Walker
Only you’re not	Gina Headden
Dmitri my friend	Iain Napier
Jackpot	Iain Napier
Forwards, backwards, sideways	Jackie Burgoyne
There you go	Jane Fraser
Paper Chain Dolls	Jennifer Cairns
The Professor	Jerome McFaden
The marriage of Lennie and Mike	John Mulligan
Exclusive Control	Jon Nixon
THE POWER OF FRIGHT	JONATHAN FRANK
The Switch	Jude Higgins
Upstairs Downstairs	Jude Higgins
Camp B	Katerina protopsaltis
The World of Modern Ballet	Katerina protopsaltis
TV VS WALKING	Katerina protopsaltis
Lana’s Day as a Poet	Katherine West
The Dog Will Be Fine	Katherine West
The Golden Toilet	Kenneth Francis
Jill	Kyle Macdowell
Beyond Inside	Laurence Davies
The Life and Times of Mary Margaret McBride	Linda Rathburn
SERIAL DATER	Loraine Felce
Land Of Stones	Mark Smith
Wreck	Mark Sutz
Com	Marked
DARKROOM	Michelle Allford
Nephew	Michelle Coyne
Twig	Michelle Wright
Earth Excavation Summary	Monica Hileman
Regret	Nancy Ludmerer
Tiffy	Nancy Ludmerer
Transformation	Nicholas Ruddock
Animals	Pamela Banayoti
Candy	patria hatami
A Full House	Patricia Demery
Thank You For Holding	Paul Bassett Davies
An equal opportunities employer	PJ Stephenson
A Fine Goodbye	Ren Watson
Edacious	Riona Judge McCormack
BOY	Robert Barrett
Soul-Surfing	Ron Jones
Maud Yearns to Conform	Rose Servitova
The Ride	Rucha Modak
Road Kill	Russell Reader
Happy Birthday Victor	seamus scanlon
The Parking Angel	seamus scanlon
The Wardrobe	Sharon Bennett
Erika Dent has the Last Word	Sheila Mannix
Dark Eyes	Stephanie Shields
Trade-Off	Sultana Banulescu
Bullet Points	Susan Zatland
Ivy	Bernadette Gallagher
Missing	Tony O’Prey
When Philippa Met Ava	Tony Tysoe
Buy One Get One Free	Wallace Barnes
Some Enchanted Evening	Will Ingrams
A gap in the curtains	William Konarzewski
Explanations	Xanthi Barker

LONGLIST Flash Fiction Prize 2015

200 flash stories longlisted
(1285 flash stories submitted in total)

Jeffery	Abbie Tingstad
Miracle	Adam Tamashasky
Third Course	Alan Cole
WHEN YOU WISH UPON A STAR	Alex Reece Abbott
A FREE LUNCH	Alex Reece Abbott
SOMETHING SWEET TO FINISH	Alex Reece Abbott
The Gentleman	Alistair Daniel
Shooting Season	Allison Browning
Escape	Angela Hickey
The Hungry Goddess	Anita Lehmann
#Teaching Moment	Ann-Marie Jerman
Late-Night Takeaway	Anna McGrail
Penelope	Anna McGrail
The Man in her Bed	Anne Crosse
Shadows and Dreams	Annette Bower
through slipstreams	AYDIN MEHMET ALI
The Little Girl Inside Me	Beata Anna Fijalkowska
Ivy	Bernadette Gallagher

Tipping Point	Bernie McQuillan
The loves of Efraim Cotter	Beth Evans
Daughter	Beth Grosart
GOTCHA	Breda Nathan
The Button at the End of the World	Brian Quat
Fruit Vines	Bridget Helwig
Doubling Down	Bruce Christiansen
THE RIDE	Brynn Carroll
The Bird Kitchen	bryony doran
Why?	C Pringle
You Should Have Known	Calysta Sylvester
I might go to Spain	Carol Jones
The Transformation	Caroline McCartney
First Time	Carrie Beckwith
Not so Flash	Carrie Beckwith
New Years Eve	Celine Mescall
The Final	Celine West
The soul is symphonic (Little Red Riding Hood in midlife)	Ceridwen Buckmaster
Too good to be true	Charles Knightley
Comrades	Charlie Weaver Rolfe
Trash Fish	chloe wilson
Gravity	Christian Cook
Full Circle	Christina Eagles
Pierrot	Christina Eagles
How to Survive	christina Sanders
Making a Man	christina Sanders
My Hewo	CJ Hribal
Witness	clare proctor
Banana Squash	clare proctor
Promises	clare proctor
Men in Elk Country	Coleman Pape
Horny Toad	Colin Houghton
Winter	Crystal Huynh
Suburban Spy	Cynthia Buck
HOLIDAY CONVERSATIONS IN MARRIED LIFE	damien donnelly
She Nose	Dave Joy
The Comedy	David Armstrong
A Small Price	David Steward
Life in Lost Canyon	Dawn Lowe
Why	Dawn Lowe
Falling Short of a Lou Reed Song	Deirdre Daly
Rapunzel	Deirdre Daly
A Small Inconvenience	Denise Drespling
50 Years	Derek Keane
When Lorca Broke My Heart	Devon Ronner
Too Close for Comfort	E.L Norry
Noise	Eamon Mc Guinness
The Muse	Emily Devane
Life Sentence	Emma Rea
A Taste for Rednecks	Ericka Olsen Stefano
The Flute	Evelyn Walsh
Billy	Filipa (aka ‘Kaori’) Komuro (aka ‘Crawford’)
Family Holidays	Gillian Walker
Only you’re not	Gina Headden
The Proposal	Hannah Shepard
Wasted	Iain Napier
Dmitri my friend	Iain Napier
Jackpot	Iain Napier
Flash	Ian Duckworth
A Prodigal Prays For Harlem in Winter	Isabella David McCaffrey
Forwards, backwards, sideways	Jackie Burgoyne
Wait	Jackie Davis
Love Post GFC	James Balian
Misconception	James Murtha
Her First Steps	Jamie Stacey
The Love I Don’t Tell	Jamie Stacey
The Plastic Banana	Jane Avery
The wish list	Jane Fraser
When the power goes off	Jane Fraser
There you go	Jane Fraser
Burying the Truth	Jane Rogers
Tea time	Janet Duignan
The games people play	Janet Duignan
Butterfly Buns	Jason Akehurst
Song	Jason Jackson
Girl, Bridge	Jason Jackson
Paper Chain Dolls	Jennifer Cairns
The Professor	Jerome McFaden
The marriage of Lennie and Mike	John Mulligan
Shadow or Shade	John O’Connor
Our Billy	John Stockdill
Cheesecloth	John Wheway
Exclusive Control	Jon Nixon
THE POWER OF FRIGHT	JONATHAN FRANK
The Switch	Jude Higgins
Upstairs Downstairs	Jude Higgins
White Matter	Julianna Holland
The Age of Progress	Karen Baker
Regrets	Kate Mahony
Camp B	Katerina protopsaltis
The World of Modern Ballet	Katerina protopsaltis
TV VS WALKING	Katerina protopsaltis
Lana’s Day as a Poet	Katherine West
The Dog Will Be Fine	Katherine West
The Golden Toilet	Kenneth Francis
The Re-gifting of Sisterly Love	Kerrin O’Sullivan
Before the Tsunami	Kirsty Seymour-Ure
Jill	Kyle Macdowell
68th street	Larry Fondation
Beyond Inside	Laurence Davies
Lost at sea	Lee Farnsworth
Broken	Lee Farnsworth
Cafe de Paris (Geneva, Switzerland)	Linda Nemec Foster
The Life and Times of Mary Margaret McBride	Linda Rathburn
Shopping List	Lisa Derrick
The Presage	Lisa Fransson
SERIAL DATER	Loraine Felce
CARE (taking)	Lynn Blair
The Task List	Maire Ryan
Not thirty yet	Margaret Callaghan
Falling	Margo Barnes
Epilogue to a Cutter’s Handbook	Maria Kaplun
Home	Marie Boland
Tick-tock	Marie Parkins
The Talent	Marjorie K. Kennedy
Land Of Stones	Mark Smith
Robots	Mark Sutz
Wreck	Mark Sutz
Com	Marked
Macaroon Bar	martin shiel
Three little words	maureen flynn
The Great Wheel Turns	Maureen Gallagher
The Shortest Distance Between Two Places	Melissa Ostrom
SOMETIME AHEAD	Michael Kirby
BLAST FROM THE PAST	Michael Kirby
DARKROOM	Michelle Allford
Nephew	Michelle Coyne
Twig	Michelle Wright
Rare Expectations	Monica Goldberg
Earth Excavation Summary	Monica Hileman
Regret	Nancy Ludmerer
Tiffy	Nancy Ludmerer
Transformation	Nicholas Ruddock
Short back and sides.	Noel Wills
Animals	Pamela Banayoti
Fifty Knots	Pat Murphy
Candy	patria hatami
A Full House	Patricia Demery
Oranges are not the only fruit	Patricia Kyne
Thank You For Holding	Paul Bassett Davies
Pigs for Breakfast	Paul Rankin
His Journey	Paul Stabell
Ice	Pauline Murphy
An equal opportunities employer	PJ Stephenson
The Other Lucy Jordan	Polly Hall
A Fine Goodbye	Ren Watson
The Bridge	Richard Weems
Edacious	Riona Judge McCormack
MACKEREL	Robert Barrett
BOY	Robert Barrett
The Owl and the Pussy-Cat	Roger Vickery
Soul-Surfing	Ron Jones
Maud Yearns to Conform	Rose Servitova
Fishing With Frank Sinatra	Ruby Speechley
The Ride	Rucha Modak
Road Kill	Russell Reader
When Your Babies are Dried…	Ruth Tamiatto
Storm	Sara Roberts
Not a Party Girl	Sarah Bianchi
Happy Birthday Victor	seamus scanlon
The Parking Angel	seamus scanlon
The Wardrobe	Sharon Bennett
Appropriation Artist	Sheila Mannix
Erika Dent has the Last Word	Sheila Mannix
Compensation	Simon Kensdale
Cancer	Siobhan Devoy
Accidents	Stella MacAleese
Dark Eyes	Stephanie Shields
Trade-Off	Sultana Banulescu
Boxing Day	Susan McCreery
Bullet Points	Susan Zatland
Missing	Tony O’Prey
When Philippa Met Ava	Tony Tysoe
What You Wish For	Tom Scruton
MEET ME IN BELFAST	trish leake
Falling	Una Mannion
My father’s dog	Veronica Bright
Buy One Get One Free	Wallace Barnes
Barbs	West Foster
Some Enchanted Evening	Will Ingrams
A gap in the curtains	William Konarzewski
Explanations	Xanthi Barker

WINNERS Fish Short Memoir Prize 2015

FIRST
Throat of Morning by Wendell Hawken
SECOND
The Torso and the Lotus by David Horovitch
THIRD
Porn by Saffron Marchant

HONORARY MENTIONS:
Van Men   by John Harris
Dutch Scene Before Divorce by Nicola Waldron
Kibun by Elizabeth Browne
The Beach Umbrella   by Eva Faber
No More Encores   by Aida Lennon
Symphony Date   by Cathy Beres
Christmas is Coming by Alan Coley

SHORTLIST Fish Short Memoir Prize 2015

90 memoirs shortlisted
(780 memoirs submitted in total)

MEMOIR TITLE	AUTHOR
A Life in Dogs	Adrianne Aron
A Caseful of Ostrich Feathers	Aida Lennon
CHRISTMAS IS COMING	Alan Coley
We All Know Mr Jones	Alice Jolly
Kingsley	Amanda Bell
Black Ice	Amy Vander Els
Christmas Day in Dewsbury	Andrea Burn
The Precipice	Anna Bogdanova
Homeward Bound	Anna McGrail
‘Cause I knew I was loved	Anni Webster
Peter	Barbara Unkovic
A Boy is a Half-Assed Thing	Barry Troy
A Life Well Lived	Beryl Trebble
Where the Sun Comes up Like Thunder	Blair Bourassa
Just a Little Finger	Bridgett Kendall
Mother’s Bad Leg	Carol Kellar
Practicing doctors	Caroline Mawer
What if the Pastor’s Wife Wants to Quit?	Carrie Stephens
LEARNING TO LIE	Catherine Brophy
Symphony Date	Cathy Beres
From the Mockingbird’s Throat	Chris Carson
March	Chris RB Fay
Make You a Woman	Cynthia Stuart
The Torso and the Lotus	David Horovitch
The Bedrock of My Soul	Deborah Cameron
GOING UP CAMDEN	DICK JONES
´I can´t write about him´ – Writing in the Silences: Beckett, Grief and Art	Eamon Mc Guinness
Kibun	elizabeth browne
Getting Saved	Elizabeth Brunazzi
The Trail of Tears	Ewing Baldwin
The Hooded Man	Frances Kenny
FAMIGLIA	G.L. Sheridan
Motherland	Geraldine Anslow
Damage	Gerry Dorrian
Hanoi Jane	Jane Fraser
Love in a Camper Van	Jane Fraser
He Drove As Far As He Needed To	Jane Hacking
Burning Bridges	Janet Duignan
Riding Shotgun	Jeanne Martin
L’appartement de Mon Amie (My Girlfriend’s Apartment)	Jeffrey Koterba
Van Men	John Harris
DROWNING	John Wagner
Scatter Your Ashes with a Frisbee	Jordan Felker
The House	Julian Bentley Edelman
The Day Before Easter, 2013	Julian Bentley Edelman
The Girl Who Stayed	Kathleen Chaplin
The Girl Who Stayed	Kathleen Chaplin
The American Dream	Kathryn Shaver
Double Helix	Kirstan Hawkins
Weird Dirt	Lisa Grube
Up there	Lorna Thorpe
A Suitable Family	Louise Kennedy
Chapatis, Hunger, Tigers, and Liberation: a Pilgrim’s Tale	Madiha Bataineh
A Few Small Stones	marilyn ogus katz
Learning to walk in a man’s shoes	Marlene LEE
THE SOCKS	Marsha Mittman
The Schoolyard	Martine Fournier
The Dought Season	Mary Bilan
Unutterable	Mary Roberts
Who We Become	mary shannon
soul crows–a memory	michael casey
I am Made of This	Miriam Moeller
Rite of Passage	Natalie Ryan
Boys will be boys.	Nicholas Bowlby
On Seagull Street	Nicholas McLachlan
Dutch Scene Before Divorce	Nicola Waldron
Bittersweet Thursday	Ninette Hartley
No More	pauline rooney
Always With Us	Pavlina Morgan
Bloke to Bloke	Peter Tonkin
The One With the Personality	Phyllida Scrivens
An Immigrant’s tale	RASHMI PAUN
Sunday Dinner	Rhoda Wolfe
September Spam	Richard Holeton
Slivers and Fragments	Robert Little
Elysium	Robert Maxwell
Petty Crimes	Roberta George
Exposure	Ruth Heller
JOURNEYING SOUTH	Ruth Oliver
Porn	Saffron Marchant
Suitcase of Memories	Sandi Parsons
Dream Homes	Sandra Burdett
Saturdays	Sarala Estruch
Big Blonde With A Beehive	Sharon MaHarry
Yahoo	Stewart Ross Carry
Memories are Made of These	Sue Roff
The Christmas Story	Terese Brasen
Dear My Father	Una Mannion
The Onion Church	Una Mannion
Throat of Morning	Wendell Hawken

LONGLIST Short Memoir Prize 2015

197 memoirs longlisted
(780 memoirs submitted in total)

MEMOIR TITLE	AUTHOR
My Life, The Movie	A.B. Chesler
Middle School Life	Abbie Tingstad
30-Dec	Abbie Tingstad
How to Save Comic in Times of War	Adnan Mahmutovic
A Life in Dogs	Adrianne Aron
A Caseful of Ostrich Feathers	Aida Lennon
CHRISTMAS IS COMING	Alan Coley
Saragh’s Diary	Alexandra D’Arcy
We All Know Mr Jones	Alice Jolly
The Fairy Child	Alison Walker
What Happened in Jamaica	Alyssa Kilzer
Kingsley	Amanda Bell
Black Ice	Amy Vander Els
Cows and Lies	Andre Hess
Christmas Day in Dewsbury	Andrea Burn
From the Head’s Office	Angus Walker
View Near the Borderline	Ann Thompson
The Precipice	Anna Bogdanova
Now gone home	Anna Hansell
Homeward Bound	Anna McGrail
A Gas Woman	Anne Griffin
A Ghost Itches	Anne Griffin
Culture Shock	Anne Stoddart
‘Cause I knew I was loved	Anni Webster
Nuns & Dinosaurs	Annie Lowney
The Outer Hebrides	Anthony Costello
The Dividing Line	April Darcy
Peter	Barbara Unkovic
A Boy is a Half-Assed Thing	Barry Troy
A Life Well Lived	Beryl Trebble
Red Brick	Betty Weiner
Rules to Survive Childhood	Billie Travalini
Where the Sun Comes up Like Thunder	Blair Bourassa
Just a Little Finger	Bridgett Kendall
The Skiles Junior High Blues	bruce wexler
Where Are the People?	Caitlin McGill
Dear Diary	Cal Bartley
Mother’s Bad Leg	Carol Kellar
Dorie Adams	Caroline Hume
Practicing doctors	Caroline Mawer
What if the Pastor’s Wife Wants to Quit?	Carrie Stephens
LEARNING TO LIE	Catherine Brophy
Non-Toxic	Catherine Coldstream
Mary	Catherine Conroy
Symphony Date	Cathy Beres
From the Mockingbird’s Throat	Chris Carson
CROSSING OVER	Chris Livingstone
March	Chris RB Fay
Beautiful Gardens	Christina Greeves
In Wales with Larry	Christopher North
Five Things That Terrified Me Abou Visiting My Grandparents	Ciara McVeigh
YOU’RE NEVER TOO YOUNG TO BE SCARED	Cindy Small
The Way We Were	Clarrie Pringle
Make You a Woman	Cynthia Stuart
Womb Dances	Dairena Ní Chinnéide
CYCLING IN ISRAEL	David Forest Hitchcock
The Torso and the Lotus	David Horovitch
The Bedrock of My Soul	Deborah Cameron
My mate came to see me	Debra Phillips
Pleasure	Deepak Singh
Mum in Memory	Denise Blake
GOING UP CAMDEN	DICK JONES
´I can´t write about him´ – Writing in the Silences: Beckett, Grief and Art	Eamon Mc Guinness
Kibun	elizabeth browne
Walter and Tatsy	Elizabeth Brunazzi
Getting Saved	Elizabeth Brunazzi
Bridge of Sighs	Elsbeth Collins
Funeral	Eugene McCarthy
The Trail of Tears	Ewing Baldwin
Blood Suckers	Frances Kenny
Hold Your Collar	Frances Kenny
The Hooded Man	Frances Kenny
FAMIGLIA	G.L. Sheridan
Where Things Are Kept No More	gabi burman
You in N’awlins Now Baby	Geraldine Anslow
Once upon a time there was a tavern	Geraldine Anslow
Motherland	Geraldine Anslow
Damage	Gerry Dorrian
Not the Journey We Were Expecting	Gordon Darroch
Where Black Rivers Meet	Gulara Vincent
Sage and Wisdom	Helen Hansen
Growing up in wrtime	Jackie Hinden
Death at Midnight	Jaimee Joroff
There Were Red Roses At The Gas Station	Jaimee Joroff
Fine Dining in Bartlesville	James Murtha
Kinsale Fishermen	James Murtha
My Road to Je Suis Charlie	James Yao
It Seems Like Yesterday	Jane Ashworth
The Jackalberry Tree	Jane Borges
Diamonds	Jane Borges
Hanoi Jane	Jane Fraser
Love in a Camper Van	Jane Fraser
He Drove As Far As He Needed To	Jane Hacking
Burning Bridges	Janet Duignan
The Duck	Javi Reddy
Riding Shotgun	Jeanne Martin
L’appartement de Mon Amie (My Girlfriend’s Apartment)	Jeffrey Koterba
THE CHRISTMAS CHICKENS	Jenifer Granger
Did You Pee	Jim McDonald
On the Run	Jo Fitzsimons
Van Men	John Harris
MY BROTHER’S CLOSET	John McCabe
DROWNING	John Wagner
Scatter Your Ashes with a Frisbee	Jordan Felker
The House	Julian Bentley Edelman
The Day Before Easter, 2013	Julian Bentley Edelman
Quietus	Julianna Holland
Core of My Heart	Julie Davies
The Baron	kate Biddle
The Miracle of Braile Street	Katherine Palmer
The Girl Who Stayed	Kathleen Chaplin
The Girl Who Stayed	Kathleen Chaplin
The American Dream	Kathryn Shaver
Double Helix	Kirstan Hawkins
Riding in Cars	Laura Lohnes
Salad Dressing	Lauren Foley
Kates Melodeon	Liam Cahalan
The Currency of the Ganges	Linda judge
Weird Dirt	Lisa Grube
I Am The Anti-Proust	Liz Gray
Up there	Lorna Thorpe
Mrs. Morrison	Louisa Byrne
A Suitable Family	Louise Kennedy
A Stitch in Time	Lydia Kann
Rocks	M McCutcheon
Chapatis, Hunger, Tigers, and Liberation: a Pilgrim’s Tale	Madiha Bataineh
Mabel’s chickens	Maeve Kolitz
A Few Small Stones	marilyn ogus katz
Me and Airports: AGP Malaga	Mark Blackburn
Com	Marked
Learning to walk in a man’s shoes	Marlene LEE
THE SOCKS	Marsha Mittman
The Schoolyard	Martine Fournier
The Dought Season	Mary Bilan
Children of Light	Mary Lou Shields
My Dad, Bull McCabe	Mary Mullen
Accidental Damage	Mary Roberts
Unutterable	Mary Roberts
Who We Become	mary shannon
soul crows–a memory	michael casey
The Brass City	Michael Dwyer
The last salmon fisherman on the Tamar	Michael Hooton
Dabbling Free	michelle brock
I am Made of This	Miriam Moeller
The Beginning	Mischa van den Brandhof
Rite of Passage	Natalie Ryan
Flame	Niamh MacCabe
The Lark Ascending	Niamh MacCabe
Boys will be boys.	Nicholas Bowlby
On Seagull Street	Nicholas McLachlan
Solent Ward	Nicki Heinen
Dutch Scene Before Divorce	Nicola Waldron
Bittersweet Thursday	Ninette Hartley
The Leaving	Nora McGillen
what’s your Angel name	patricia bradley
The Recipe Book	patricia Denny
No More	pauline rooney
GRANDMA and GRANDDAD CROPP	Pauline Steele
Always With Us	Pavlina Morgan
Bloke to Bloke	Peter Tonkin
The One With the Personality	Phyllida Scrivens
An Immigrant’s tale	RASHMI PAUN
America is for Lovers	Rebecca Ewan
Sunday Dinner	Rhoda Wolfe
September Spam	Richard Holeton
Slivers and Fragments	Robert Little
Elysium	Robert Maxwell
Petty Crimes	Roberta George
The Jewel Beach	Ruko Kitamaru
Exposure	Ruth Heller
JOURNEYING SOUTH	Ruth Oliver
If music be the food of love	ruth Skrine
Wings in a Life	ruth Skrine
The Workshop	Ryan Kramer
Porn	Saffron Marchant
Suitcase of Memories	Sandi Parsons
Dream Homes	Sandra Burdett
The Lifesaver	Sara Ballard
On Dad, Death, Denial, and Duty	Sarah Cunningham
Saturdays	Sarala Estruch
THE NASWAR BOX	Savi Fitch
Broken Roses	Seth Polley
Paradise Mislaid	Sharon Eckman
Big Blonde With A Beehive	Sharon MaHarry
Zambian Music	Sheila Crawford
The Call of the Peacock	Sherri Matthews
Aden	Simon Kensdale
Fifty Words for Love, in Swedish	Stephen Keeler
Yahoo	Stewart Ross Carry
Memories are Made of These	Sue Roff
Places	Susan Anmuth
Journey to Everywhere	Sylvia McGlynn
The Christmas Story	Terese Brasen
Found Soul	Tom Husband
Searching for Ruru	Tracy Brighten
Caught	tracy duvangel
Landscaping	Una Mannion
Dear My Father	Una Mannion
The Onion Church	Una Mannion
Throat of Morning	Wendell Hawken

Fish Anthology 2015

Fish Anthology 2015 –

SELECTED BY:
Jennifer Johnston ~ Short Story
Carmen Bugan ~ Short Memoir
Bret Anthony Johnston ~ Flash Fiction
Nick Laird ~ Poetry

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? What is the role of language—lyrical, descriptive or confessional in portraying these strong experiences? What exactly is the language of memory? The pieces selected here seem to prompt all these questions and the best of them offer some great answers.
Carmen Bugan

Read an excerpt from winning short story – The Pace of Change by Chris Weldon.

Read winning poem – Saint John’s Primary School Nativity. Nineteen Years On. By Tessa Maude.

Fish Anthology 2015

Flash Fiction Prize 2024: RESULTS

Winners

Short-list

Long-list

From all of us at Fish, thank you for entering your flashes. Congratulations to the writers who were short or long-listed, and in particular to the 11 winners whose flash stories will be published in the Fish Anthology 2024.

The launch will be during the West Cork Literary Festival, Bantry, Ireland – 15 July. Venue: Marino Church, 6.30 pm. It is a free event and all are welcome.

Winners

Here are the 10 winning Flash Fiction Stories, as chosen by Michelle Elvy, to be published in the FISH ANTHOLOGY 2024.

Comments on the flash stories are from Michelle, who we sincerely thank for her time and expertise.

FIRST PLACE

Messiah: by Kate O’Grady

A story that feels energetic and unbound, but is finely crafted, about individual anguish and loss, and collective responsibility and guilt. The reader is caught from the very start – from the opening lines that suggest innocence alongside a more sinister sense of hysteria. And by the end, the collective ‘we’ can’t be escaped; we feel, eerily, hope in the remembering but also intense regret. We see the cruelty of children, the human potential for bullying. The tone is controlled as it moves from early antics to serious concerns for survival, as it shifts from past-tense memories to present-tense grief. The extended saviour metaphor is created in the dark spaces between fantasy and reality, and the use of second person – and the unforgettable image of the greatcoat and Docs – builds both tension and tenderness. A beautifully haunting story that surprised me and did not let go.

SECOND PLACE

Starship Borders General: by Susan Shepherd

This story begins simply enough but before you know it you’re in a whole community, an entire world. And even if dead serious, the language is lively and playful: a baby’s heart-shaped nostrils, son singing ‘You are my sunshine’ and the fishmonger, with ‘a turmoil of porpoises rolling in the blue carpet tiles of his wake’. The neatly ordered details in this narrative make it memorable: a father’s departure and a mother’s ‘mock croc handbag’; the whirr of the radiology machine and the memory of a cake with buttercream paste. This is sensory writing invoking the maddening present and the dreamy past, the borders fluid; despite the intensity of death or near-death in the ward, there is an overall feeling of jubilation at the unexpectedness of life. The final phrase sticks: ‘the colour of delicious’. It’s not where we think we are heading, and it’s just right.

THIRD PLACE

Blue Moon Memory: by PS Duffy

The casual voice invites us into this story; it’s familiar and comfortable. But this is not a comfortable story. What begins as a seemingly romantic encounter moves through a maelstrom of emotions, flashing backward and forward, tangling images and feelings in a brief moment of contact. The moment blurs to memory, and the story is alive with living and re-living. Here, a play with words that shows the uncertainty of the narrator-character, but also the careful rhythms of the writing: ‘when you stumbled, when I stumbled, when we stumbled into, I don’t know, the best of us’. What is striking is not only the story (of now, of then, of the residue of surviving), but the way this story is written, (the fragments, the repeated ‘remember?’), even as we are reading something so vivid as a moment that lives somewhere in the realms of darkness, rescue and salvation.

EIGHT HONORABLE MENTIONS (In no particular order)

A Story in 300 Words : by alfie lee

Coming of Age: by Jo Nestor

THE Interrogation of Lauren Lundgren: by Alan Falkingham

Pivot Point: by Judith Brown

The Importance of Firm Upholstery: by Fionnula Simpson

I Follow: by Seamus Scanlon

Things That Hurt: by Nicole Love

Blue Light: by RJ Dwyer

Notes from Michelle Elvy:

What a delight to read the submissions for the 2024 Fish Flash Fiction Prize, and what an honour and a challenge to make selections. The work I read demonstrates the way the form can be stretched, shaped and synthesised to create new imaginative views. Most pieces I read dealt with the landscape of human emotion and folly. Some read like traditional stories, some were like prose poems – all took risks in one way or another. The ones that engaged difficult subjects did so with an inquisitive and sometimes playful nature, also tenderness and grace. The works I selected for inclusion are the ones I returned to several times, and then several times again.

Some of them play with voice and form, from the deceptively simple backwards narrative of ‘A Story in 300 Words’ to the intimate second-person storytelling of ‘Coming of Age’ and the spare and poignant dialogue in ‘I follow’. Some explore the collisions and ruptures between people; despite the sometimes jaunty writing style, ‘No Idea’, ‘The Importance of Firm Upholstery’ and ‘The Interrogation of Lauren Lundgren’ navigate complex terrain. Some stand out for the way they land: in ‘Blue Light’, ‘Things That Hurt’ and ‘Pivot Point’, the reader is left in a state of quandary, or wonder.

In the works selected, I found new ways of sensing realities, and what lies just beyond reality. Compelling is the way these fictions explore language, too. Each of the top three presents a steady and strong voice; there is writerly control while also a sense in each story that the edge is there to explore. These are big stories, whole worlds.

Writers of flash fiction are a fearless lot – and these stories prove that.

Michelle Elvy

A LITTLE ABOUT THE WINNERS:

Kate O’Grady is Irish by birth, but now roams the hills of Stroud, Gloucestershire trying to come up with ideas for stories. In fact she is obsessed with stories, the reading of them, and the writing of them. She also likes to eat bagels and lox with cream cheese. Her favourite short story writers are Lorrie Moore, Kevin Barry, Claire Keegan, Joy Williams and Wells Tower. Her favourite bagels are from Katz’s Deli in New York.

Susan Shepherd lives in the Scottish border town of Hawick, famed for producing medal-winning haggis and Scottish national rugby players. A journalist and poet – she won the Fish Poetry Prize in 2022 – Susan enjoys belting out hymns at the local Baptist church on a Sunday, and pushing her new granddaughter round the park in her pram. She is partial to Guinness, live music and the sound of oystercatchers along the river Teviot.

PS Duffy lives in Minnesota, where she misses sailing on the North Atlantic, yet, oddly, feels very much at home. Her publications include a memoir about her family’s time in 1940s Wuhan, China, where she was born, and The Cartographer of No Man’s Land, a WW I novel set in France and Nova Scotia. Published in the U.S., Canada, Israel, and the UK, it was a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, which recognizes the power of fiction to promote peace.

alfie lee discovered gravity and invented french kissing. when he’s not circumnavigating the globe on his solar-powered chimichanga he’s making stuff up. you can find them at alfielee.com.

Jo Nestor, retired Adult Educator, writes fulltime. She won the 2020 Leitrim Guardian Literary Award, has twice long-listed for FISH memoir competitions, and was shortlisted for Allingham Festival in 2023. Jo’s writing features in A Word in Your Ear – Roscommon New Writing Anthology 2019-2023, as well as several editions of the Roscommon broadsheet Autumn Leaves. Her well-received book reviews are available online at www.writing.ie . Despite global despair, she chooses to live in hope.

When Seamus Scanlon won the Fish Flash Fiction Prize with The Long Wet Grass (2011) he thought he had arrived (in West Cork). When the story became a one act play (2014) he thought he had arrived (on Broadway). When the story became a film (2015) he thought he had arrived (in Hollywood). When the play was translated into Japanese and staged in Tokyo (2018) he thought he had arrived (in the East). Will the Beauty Curse (2022) finally lift his arrival curse? Stay tuned www.seamusscanlon.com

Alan Falkingham currently lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, but originally hails from England. He is a published author of micro and flash fiction, short stories and occasional poetry. He has completed 2 full length novels. Alan’s 80,000-word dark mystery, Clearwater Lake, is represented by Meredith Bernstein. When not writing, Alan spends his time being ordered around by his two teenage daughters, guzzling craft beer with his partner, Gina, and following the latest sporting mishaps of Leeds United.

Judith Brown, born the eldest and only girl of five learnt early in life to seek out solitude. Then after a few years of marriage had solitude forced on her as a young widow. Even today, being alone is a natural preference apart from every other day when it’s not.

Fionnula Simpson is a writer, researcher, and teacher who is drawn to experimenting with poetry and prose. In her spare time, she likes to run (fairly slowly) and cook (rather poorly). She recently earned a PhD in English Literature from the University of Galway.

Nicole Love is a bit of an odd blend. Malted in Scotland. Mashed in Belgium. Fermented in Singapore. Distilled in San Francisco. Aged in Boston. Shelved in Edinburgh. She is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing at the University of Edinburgh and has a gentle obsession with scotch, surrealism, linguistics and cultural oddness.

RJ Dwyer is a writer and doctor, currently pursuing an MLitt in Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow. His stories have featured in thi wurd Magazine, The Interpreter’s House and the 2024 Anthology of the Federation of Writers (Scotland), among others. An extract of his novel-in-progress was shortlisted for the Moniack Mhor Emerging Writer Award. He has also worked as part of the editorial team for three books released by indie publisher thi wurd.

Short-list:

(alphabetical order: 31 stories)

The Interrogation of Lauren Lundgren			Alan Falkingham
A Story in 300 Words			alfie lee
Flash Fiction			alfie lee
What You Don’t Know Can Kill You			Amy Blau
Just a moment			Ciaran Fitzpatrick
Singles Night			Faye Stevenson
The Importance of Firm Upholstery			Fionnula Simpson
Fingers Crossed			Jacky Willett
Starry Mourning			Jaime Greenberg
Faceoff			Jim King
Coming of Age			Jo Nestor
Pivot Point			judith brown
Messiah			Kate O’Grady
The Blind Man			Katherine MacGloin
Wear your Pink Coat			Katherine William-Powlett
Fireworks			Kim Gravell
Leave Granted			L Khasanshina
Newborn Mother			Mary Butler
The Sweep			Michelle Bitting
Car keys			Nat Pree
Transient Household Contacts			Nat Pree
The Ritual			Natalie Morphet
Things That Hurt			Nicole Love
The maths lesson			NIROSHA GUNATILLAKE
Blue Moon Memory			P.S. Duffy
Blue Light			RJ Dwyer
I Follow			Seamus Scanlon
No Idea			Seamus Scanlon
Wings			Sean Murphy
Starship Borders General			Susan Shepherd

Long-list:

In Alphabetical order (124)

Rehab	AK~ Kaiser
The Interrogation of Lauren Lundgren	Alan Falkingham
STATIC ON THE LINE	ALEX REECE ABBOTT
flash fiction	alfie lee
A Story in 300 Words	alfie lee
The Door	Alison Bundy
A Stick of Incense	Alison Bundy
How Good Is Our Universe?	ALISON GROVE
What You Don’t Know Can Kill You	Amy Blau
The 52-year old man who turned into a cliché	Anita Lehmann
The Argument	Ariane Sherine
Polka Dot Cardi	Belinda Moore
A small diver and a very large pool	Bernard Steeds
1970s Kiev	Breda Nathan
Just a moment	Ciaran Fitzpatrick
Apricity	David Micklem
Try	David Rhymes
Singles Night	Faye Stevenson
The Importance of Firm Upholstery	Fionnula Simpson
I’m up here	Frances Fischer
Family Violence	GAY LYNCH
Thanks. No.	GAY LYNCH
Mapping the Madness	Geraldine Walsh
A Swarm of Boys	Harriet Whitehead
Adieux, Henri	Helen Bar-Lev
Fluid of the Animal Body	Ian Lee
Fingers Crossed	Jacky Willett
Starry Mourning	Jaime Greenberg
Mind the Gap	James Garvey
Faceoff	Jim King
Who’s Greg Badger?	Jonathan Sellars
Can’t Kill the Spirit	Jude Higgins
Pivot Point	judith brown
The Holler	Judy Luttrell
Safe House	Jupiter Jones
To the Little Old Archivist Who Lives in My Head	Kaitlin Roberts
Messiah	Kate O’Grady
The Blind Man	Katherine MacGloin
Wear your Pink Coat	Katherine William-Powlett
Shaxton’s Law	Kathryn Aldridge-Morris
The Drop	Ken Byrne
The difference between you and a drone pilot	Kevin Walsh
Fireworks	Kim Gravell
Leave Granted	L Khasanshina
Attendance: 9th Grade English, 8.00 am	Lana Holman
Buck	Laura J. Bobrow
Family – a collection of disparate memories	Lesley Bungay
Bone	Louisa Scott
Unrepairable	Louise Henriksen
But I’m Here Now	Luanne Castle
Subterranean Tears	Luka Bulajic
The CV	Maeve Shaw
Newborn Mother	Mary Butler
A Second Chance	Matthew Nicholls
Au Revoir, World Crisis	Michael Russell
The Sweep	Michelle Bitting
Car keys	Nat Pree
Transient Household Contacts	Nat Pree
The Ritual	Natalie Morphet

Things That Hurt	Nicole Love
Decimation	Nikki Barrowclough
The maths lesson	NIROSHA GUNATILLAKE
Paper Dolls	Orla Russell-Conway
Blue Moon Memory	P.S. Duffy
(In)(Complete) Relationship Conversations	Pernille A Egidius Dake
If András Were a Soldier	Peter Dorward
That Day When …	Peter Rodgers
Just Breathe	PJ Lemer
PATTY’S ROAST CHICKEN	Rachel Fowler
CARRION CALL	Rae Cowie
Mariachi Pantomime	Randy Osborne
Blue Light	RJ Dwyer
The God of Diversity	Robert Paterson
Shall we call this just a Viennese Encounter	Saara Kahra
I Follow	Seamus Scanlon
No Idea	Seamus Scanlon
%	Sharon Boyle
According to Wikipedia, Most Damelflies Emerge in Cool Daytime Conditions	Sherry Morris
Case Closed	shirley larkin
Fishface	Stephen Gallagher
Starship Borders General	Susan Shepherd
Swiped	Tim Fywell
Dave	Wiebo Grobler
Left Out	William MacFarlane
Déjà Vu	William Natale
Dymphna	Yanna Papaioannou
The Unbreakable Egg	Zoe Arena

Short Story Prize 2022 Results

Winners

Short-list

Long-list

On behalf of all of us at Fish, congratulations to the 10 winners, and to those who made the short and long lists.

I was delighted to find so many skilled pieces in the entries this year, stories that
were gem-like, compressed and glinting . . . Sarah Hall

The Ten Winners:

Sarah Hall

Selected by Sarah Hall

The 10 winners will be published in the Fish Anthology 2023.

(There were 1,392 entries to the competition.)


First: *Vietnam*	Letty Butler (Sheffield, UK)

Second: *The Longhouse*	Nicholas Petty (UK / Amsterdam)

Third: *Autophile*	Dylan Garity (New York)

*Endangered*	Roger Vickery (Australia)

*Fur*	Allegra A Mullan (London)

*Hitch*	Emma Neale (New Zealand)

*Readmission*	Josephine Rowe (Australia)

The Parts He Missed	Joshua Wagner. (USA / West Cork)

*The Thing Adored*	Hanako Senzoku (Japan)

*The Watch Case*	Hanako Senzoku (Japan)

Comments from Judge, Sarah Hall:

Reading short stories is one of the most nerve-wracking experiences. You never know
what you are going to get as a reader, and as a critic. This is not just because they
showcase disquiet, tension, subversion and surprise, but because the form itself is so
difficult, so exacting, even punishing to attempt, and it remains, very often, an un-
mastered discipline.

But I was delighted to find so many skilled pieces in the entries this year, stories that
were gem-like, compressed and glinting, little worlds in entirety that refracted life and
ideas, and created a hinterland around their borders. Pieces that were written by
authors who really understood short story metrics – economy, traction, mood,
schematics, potency, negative space, and irresolution.

I was also heartened to experience a variety of themes and styles, because the form,
for all its limits, is oddly flexible, open to innovation, experimentation and originality,
a staging ground for a host of topics and landscapes and human goings-on. It is hard
to summarize these entries, other than to say, as always, existentialist DNA was deep
there, from which a myriad of ideas, tales and explorations branched out.

What a joy! What a joy to experience in these stories the many versions of us, told in
so many different ways, small episodes pushing up against big themes, propositions
and provocations that expand any restrictions we might make for ourselves, socially,
politically, or textually. What a joy to be transported to so many different places
around the globe, and into speculative futures, and back into the disputable past.
Yes, the reading was truly nerve-wracking, but for all the right reasons.

A little about the winners:

Letty Butler is a writer, actress, comedienne, creative coach and chronically indecisive. She’s based in a tiny flat in Sheffield, writes across multiple genres and has just finished her debut novel, Escape Artists. Letty’s always got multiple projects on the bubble due to a low boredom threshold. She’s currently working on her debut collection of short fiction and is developing a 12-part comedy series for screen, alongside award-winning director, Juliet May (Motherland, Miranda).

Nicholas Petty is a British writer living in Utrecht, the Netherlands. His short fiction has previously been listed for the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award and the Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize, and has appeared in The Moth, The London Magazine, Short Fiction Journal, and elsewhere. When he’s not at his desk, he can be found on a sunny terrace with a plate of bitterballen and a tiny Dutch beer.

Dylan Garity is a writer and editor originally from Oregon, currently living in Brooklyn, New York. As a spoken word poet, he has toured around the United States, performing at a wide variety of venues and winning the college national poetry slam with Macalester College. He cofounded and served as vice president of Button Poetry for many years, and now works as a freelance fiction editor. “Autophile” is his first published short story.

Roger Vickery rescued this story from a shelter. From the jump, it whined, barked, scratched, and shat out demands to be re-located to a sunny home. Drawing on his multi-vocational (ADHD?) background Roger employed marketing wiles, legal arguments, military tactics, teaching aids and sailing tacks to up-sell the ingrate. Failure. Then he remembered The Fish. They’re a soft touch… accepted his poetry pup in 2015… maybe they’re open to a new stray?

Allegra Mullan is twenty-two years old and lives in North London. She has had work published in the Keats Shelley review, the Penguin First Story anthology, the 2016 Foyles Young Poets anthology, and Rotters Magazine. When she is not on her phone, Allegra enjoys watching film trailers and walking. She is currently studying Creative Writing at Goldsmiths and working as a chef.

Emma Neale lives and works in Dunedin, New Zealand, as a freelance editor and occasional creative writing tutor. The published author of novels, poetry and short fiction, she is also the mother of two sons. Her husband works as a theoretical physicist; her sons like to say this family background of ‘physics and poetry’ has clearly led directly to their own divergent passions: jazz percussion and basketball.

Josephine Rowe is the author of three story collections and a novel, A Loving, Faithful Animal, published in the UK by Tuskar Rock Press. She was a 2021-2022 fellow at the New York Public Library’s Cullman Centre for Scholars and Writers, and a 2022 Writer in Residence at Literaturhaus Zürich. She has recently returned to Australia and is living in coastal Victoria, working on a new novel and sleep. Her latest collection of stories is Here Until August.

Josh Wagner spent his early years in California before his folks dragged him off to Montana, where he learned to love a bit of solitude. He has a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Edinburgh, and is currently living in West Cork working on a baffling PhD concerning forests, grief, embodiment and spectrality. He dabbles in music, filmmaking and theatre, but the art of fiction will always be his first and most abiding love.

Hanako Senzoku has spent half her life in Melbourne, Australia and half as a returnee in Tokyo, Japan – her sense of what constitutes a barbeque is a present source of consternation, and writing an ever-guiding star. She is perpetually filled with wonder and confusion, and an appetite for delicious things.