The
best Spoonface & Other Stories
It’s
fantastic to discover that so many people write short stories. There
were over 2,000 entries to the Fish Short Story Prize this year. We
notice that every year the standard goes up, and it is increasingly
difficult to shortlist. Frequently, the difference is the ending. So
many stories just fail to make the cut because the author has not dedicated
the same care to the ending as they have to the rest of the story.
Sometimes I think that there are more people writing short stories than reading them. There is a reluctance, in most publishing houses, to publish anthologies of short stories because of the lack of demand. A campaign is underway to revitalise short story reading. The British Arts Council is working hard to promote the short story, but more needs to be done in schools so that children feel reading short stories is something they do.
Fish Publishing is dedicated to the short story and endeavours to make the anthology intriguing to young and old. We have increased the first prize for the 2004/5 Fish Short Story Prize to €10,000, and all the published authors next year will be financially rewarded. We hope the larger prize will give the winner a boost, and will attract attention to the prize and help to raise awareness of the short story form.
We have introduced a Very Short Story Prize, and the best six from that competition appear in this book. Many who entered hadn’t written much before. Well done to those authors – 250 words is an exacting discipline. There were almost 1,500 entries, and there were many that could have made it into this book. Many of the stories that impressed had a twist in the last sentence, or had an unusual structure. All could create a character and a situation in a sentence. The opening sentence, vital in a short story, is crucial in a very short one. Of course, so is the last, and each one in between. In that sense they are as spare as poems. We were fascinated by them, and look forward to more next year.
Look out too for the Fish Unpublished Novel Prize and in the bookshops for the subsequent publication of the winning novel. See www.fishpublishing.com for details.
As for the stories in this book, they speak for themselves. Read them. If you want to read more from a particular author, get in touch with Fish and we will let the author know. Freda Churches won the Fish Short Story Prize of €2,500 with ‘Spoonface’, an utterly moving story of a mother and her invalided son. Freda was also one of the six winners of the Very Short Prize with ‘Juice Baby’. She is one of Scotland’s most promising new writers. Second prize of a week at Anam Cara Writers’ and Artists’ Retreat plus €250 went to Philip MacCann from Belfast for his story ‘Shadow Lives’, an atmospheric urban tale of love, hope, and desperation. The third prize of €250 went to Stephanie Dickinson from New York for ‘Fire Maidens, ‘57’, about two teenage girls escaping their lives on a Nevada Desert reservation into a nuclear test site.
There are twelve other short stories in this book and each is worthy, interesting and individual – from the surrealism of ‘At the Water Cooler’ by Polly Clark, the inevitability in ‘Unbreakable’ by Tim Foley, the insights into old age in ‘Shirley Poppy’ by Val Lee, to the banality of evil in ‘Rain’ by Barry Troy.
‘Countdown to Ecstasy’, by Adrian Wistreich, one of the six very short gems, went straight to my heart. Brilliant.
To all who entered the competitions, thank you. The shortlisted writers are listed at the back of this book, as are details of the Fish Prizes.
We appreciated enormously the many calls and messages offering help and good wishes after the Fish offices were burnt to the ground on Valentine’s Night. Thank you.
Edited by Clem Cairns
Contents:
Order
this book in our
Online
Book Shop
You can view some of the stories from this book in our Short Stories to Read Online page
Spoonface - Freda Churches
Shadow Lives - Philip MacCann
Fire Maidens '57 - Stephanie Dickinson
Countdown to Ecstasy -
Adrian Wistreich
Read
this story in Short
Stories to Read Online
Rain - Barry Troy
At the Water Cooler - Polly Clark
Juice Baby - Freda
Churches
Read
this story in Short
Stories to Read Online
The Silence of St. Pierre - Margaret Irish
Unbreakable - Tim Foley
The Visit - Karen Stevens
Shirley Poppy - Val G. Lee
Fat Abbey - Beth Williamson
Dressed in Irony - Michael Levitt
Breathing - Leone Ross
The Charles River - Rohan Kar
The Strawberry Man - 1973 - Thecla Condon
Garden Game - Ruth M. Harris
Man in a Wardrobe - Paul Blaney
The Admiral - Ray Dolphin
Aubergine - Selma
Dabbagh
See
Short
Stories to Read Online
The Logger - Susi Klare
The Fish Anthologies
Novels & Other Titles
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.