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Short Story: Short & Long Lists 2017

Short Story Contest 2016/17

Short-list

Long-list

Congratulations to all those on the short and long lists. There were 1,300 stories entered.

The winners, as selected by Neel Mukherjee, will be announced on the 17th March.

 

Short Story Contest 2016/17: Short-list of 40 stories

In The Dark​

Title

First Name

Last Name

     

Johnny Cash’s Girl

Xanthi

Barker

An Entry in the Yellow Book

Dianne

Bown-Wilson

Halved

Theodore

Brady

Debt Collector

Neil

Bristow

Stillwater

Michelle

Brock

Any Common Thug

Bonny

Brooks

Big Mammi

Stacy

Brown

Black Toe

Bronwen

Burgess

The Diving Lesson

Alice

Burnett

Duet

Margaret

Colville

Port Angeles

Carole

Craig

A Model of Solace

Sandy

Critchley

This Was Rapture

David

Croft

The Adonis Effect

Roz

DeKett

Saraswati

Diane

Demeter

What Green Tastes Of

Lindsay

Fisher

Reset Party

Stephen

Flanagan

Mr and Mrs Andrews

David

Foll

Sharkbite

Penny

Gibson

Undetermined

Philippa

Holloway

Bartenders I’ve Known

Liana

Imam

Entertaining Yourself To Death

William Cornelius

Johnston

Schoolgirl Crush

Ruth

Lacey

The Lost Manifesto of the Bullshit Society

John

Langan

The New World

Federica

Lugaresi

Chewing Glass

Michael

Loveday

Dead Souls

Sean

Lusk

The Mollusc

Alastair

Magness

Friends and Family

Saffron

Marchant

Salvage

Miriam

Moss

Mesopotamia

Orla

Murphy

All That We’re Good For

Melanie

Napthine

The Man

amalia

negreponti

Blackbird on a Bus

E.L

Norry

The Anniversary

gordon

parker

After Close

Brandy

Reinke

As Pretty as a Sunstone

Mirandi

Riwoe

Tender-Hearted

Fiona

Robertson

echoes

Duncan

Ross

Remember Vienna

Janey

Runci

 In The Dark

Sam

 Sanders

the receiver

Tracey

Slaughter

Messenger of God

Morgan

Smith

Taking on Water

Anne

Trooper-Holbrook

Safe from Harm

Rick

Williams

Flipping the Bird

Maja

Zmyslowski

 

Short Story Contest 2016/17: Long-list of 190 stories

Title

First Name

Last Name

   

The Salt Water Pool Boy

Peter-Adrian

Altini

Neighbours

Oana

Aristide

New Tricks

Oana

Aristide

Terrible Lizards

Kristen

Arnett

The Billion Dollar Headstand

Rajeev

Balasubramanyam

The Barn

Mina

Bancheva

Johnny Cash’s Girl

Xanthi

Barker

Seeing the Werewolf

Paul

Bassett Davies

FO FUM

Paul

Bassett Davies

When Daylight Comes

Mandy

Berriman

Just Another Man In A Suit

Stephen

Boland

Short walk from Okhaldhunga

Alison

Boulton

An Entry in the Yellow Book

Dianne

Bown-Wilson

Knickers

Mary

Bradford

Halved

Theodore

Brady

The Fox

Mark

Brandi

Debt Collector

Neil

Bristow

Honeycomb

Neil

Bristow

Stillwater

Michelle

Brock

Any Common Thug

Bonny

Brooks

In here

Dan

Brotzel

Big Mammi

Stacy

Brown

The Walking Stick

Nadia

Brown

Jubilee

Eibhlin

Browne

Black Toe

Bronwen

Burgess

A song of sundering

Jimmy

Burke

Winging It

Kathryn

Burke

The River Road

Kathryn

Burke

The Diving Lesson

Alice

Burnett

The Science Hour

Paul

Byall

My New Friend Satan

Ann

Cahill

Lawn Order

David

Campbell

Knockcrockery, Boyle, Tarmonbarry, Roscommon

Aine

Carr

Sarge

Russell

Carr

Perceptions (South Africa 1979)

Celia

Claase

If I Should Wake Before I Die

Kathy

Conde

Citizenship

Jude

Cook

Port Angeles

Carole

Craig

A Model of Solace

Sandy

Critchley

This Was Rapture

David

Croft

Havoc Shore

Maureen

Cullen

Free Fall

April

Darcy

The temple cleaner

Mona

Dash

Pink Remembered Streets

Celia

de Freine

The Adonis Effect

Roz

DeKett

Saraswati

Diane

Demeter

moving finger

Anthony

Dew

A Bus Journey

Eamon

Doggett

Unfinished House

Anne

Donnelly

Dust

Christina

Dowling

Roven Hood

Patricia

Duffaud

Hope is the Thing with Feathers

Georgina

Eddison

The Swap

Rachel

Ephraim

Lara

Bonnie

Etherington

No Thief

Carol

Farrelly

The Note

Frank

Farrelly

Lexi in a Blue Dress

Lindsay

Fisher

A Kiss for Chrissakes

Lindsay

Fisher

Reset Party

Stephen

Flanagan

Mr and Mrs Andrews

David

Foll

Patience and Miss Martha

Louie

Fooks

Hanger-on

Martine

Fournier

ME AND BILLY FESTIVAL

Vince

Foxall

Party Crasher

Elí

Freysson

Earthrise

Julie

Gabrielli

The Resurrection of Rakesh Sharma

Pia

Ghosh Roy

Sharkbite

Penny

Gibson

Doc

Ira

Goldstein

After His Death

lynda

green

Some Tiny Clue

Anne

Griffin

There’s More to Life than Laughter

Louise

Harland

Coffee

Siobhan

Harte

Lost Property

Margi

Hatjoullis

The Luckiest People in the World

Sarah

Hegarty

Cider For The Bear

Sarah

Helmy

Broadway Illuminations

Patricia

Hilton-Johnson

Undetermined

Philippa

Holloway

Nothing Else Will Satisfy

Marie

Holmes

Laughing at Funerals

Anthony

Howcroft

Cotton Candy – A History

Emi Lou

Howe

Already Formed

Mandy

Huggins

Bartenders I’ve Known

Liana

Imam

Galleys

John

Inglis

Two Tribes

Giovanna

Iozzi

Blackfriars

Julith

Jedamus

The Things We Believe In

Laura

Jeffrey

Entertaining Yourself To Death

William Cornelius

Johnston

Mr Sopwith

Dedwydd

Jones

The Last Supper

Dedwydd

Jones

The Manduca Sexta

Eugene

Jones Baldwin

Splinters

Jan

Kaneen

Callsign Spider

Jack

Kelleher

Price

Eamonn

Kelly

Elephant’s Breath

Louise

Kennedy

Huntergatherers

Louise

Kennedy

Almost Moving

Louise

Kennedy

Then Nothing

Anne

Kilminster

A Conference in Seoul

Silvia

Kwon

Schoolgirl Crush

Ruth

Lacey

Alejandra

Piers

Landseer

The Lost Manifesto of the Bullshit Society

John

Langan

A Jackdaw Calls

Rebekah

Lattin-Rawstrone

Slippers

Tracy

Lee-Newman

Animalia

Tracy

Lee-Newman

Forever After

Mary

Lennon

A Life 4,937 words

Maggie

Ling

WHO AM I

sarah c

Linnane

Chewing Glass

Michael

Loveday

This here land

Miranda

Luby

The New World

Federica

Lugaresi

Dead Souls

Sean

Lusk

To Memorise the Skylark

Niamh

MacCabe

The Mollusc

Alastair

Magness

The Zomergem Lights

Jill

Maio

All There Is

Keeley

Mansfield

Friends and Family

Saffron

Marchant

In Absentia

Connor

Martin

The Rain Falls Differently Over There

Niall

McArdle

Sheltered

Shaun

Mendum

White Orchids

Emily

Midorikawa

Weird Fishes

Sarah

Millington

Voyage

Tom

Moroney

Salvage

Miriam

Moss

And With One Bound

Sheila

Mulhern

H/SoWL

Aengus

Murray

The Gulmohar Tree

Amita

Murray

Under the Stars

David

Murray

This is not a Fairy Tale

Moz

N/a

All That We’re Good For

Melanie

Napthine

The Man

Amalia

Negreponti

AN UNEVENTFUL JOURNEY

Peter

Newall

Aperture

Clar

Ni Chonghaile

3 rings

Damian

Nolan

Blackbird on a Bus

E.L

Norry

All Living Things

Gráinne

O Toole

Ones Principal

Grainne

O’Brien

Rubin

John

O’Donnell

Foreign Exchange

Clare

O’Reilly

gateway

Tom

O’Rourke

ARPEGGIO

Mary

O’Shea

Vestige

Niall

O’Sullivan

Our Queen

Janet

Olsonbaker

The Anniversary

Gordon

Parker

Trouble in Mind

Stephen

Policoff

ZOO QUEST to ABERYSTWYTH

Anna

Pook

The Journeyman

Ian

Priestley

Happy Days

Bindy

Pritchard

Not All Shall Find Peace

Mary

Punch

Tough Love

David

Rea

After Close

Brandy

Reinke

Thin Air

Melanie

Ritzenthaler

As Pretty as a Sunstone

Mirandi

Riwoe

Our Lady, the Sheela Na Gig

Jane

Roberts

Tender-Hearted

Fiona

Robertson

A Colleague Calls

Toby

Roebuck

Hot-Bunking

Cynthia

Rogerson

EARLY ONE MORNING

JOSEPH

ROONEY

echoes

Duncan

Ross

Remember Vienna

Janey

Runci

In the Dark

Sam

Sanders

Born in a fire

Colum

Sanson-Regan

Squall (revised)

James C.

Saunders

Bridie

Fiona

Sherlock

DEAD END

Catriona

Shine

Water in the Desert

Peter

Slater

the receiver

Tracey

Slaughter

if found please return to

Tracey

Slaughter

Messenger of God

Morgan

Smith

I am most alive

Harriet

Springbett

The Coolest Kid in School

Andrew

Stiggers

Oh, Africa!

Rosita

Sweetman

Hairdresser’s Chess

Ruth

Tamiatto

The House on the Hill

David

Thame

Sea-change

June

Thomas

My Son, My Son

Deborah

Tomkins

“Taking on Water”

Anne

Trooper-Holbrook

Dark Undertakings

Hannah

van Didden

You and me and Hemingway

Dieuwke

van Turenhout

The Gift of Memory

Angus

Walker

Like Ava Gardner and the Swede

Hart

Wegner

Green Lizard on the Wall

Clare

Weze

Do You Know Who’s Dead?

Fiona

Whyte

The American girl

Rick

Williams

Safe from Harm

Rick

Williams

A Brilliant Bit of Work

Alison

Withey

When a chicken talks to a duck, a mouse pulls a turtle

Michele

Wong

Broken Things, Missing Things

Caroline

Wood

A Necessary Sacrifice

James

Yeo

A Cautionary Tale About Changing Horses

James

Yeo

Flipping the Bird

Maja

Zmyslowski

 

Fish Books

Fish Anthology 2024

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Vivid, astute, gripping, evocative. These stories utterly transported me. – Sarah Hall (Short Story)

In the landscape of emotion and folly, Flash writers are a fearless lot – these stories prove it. – Michelle Elvy (Flash Fiction)

… combining the personal and particular with the universal, each touching in surprising ways … experiences that burn deep, that need to be told. – Sean Lusk (Memoir)

Strong poems. First place is a poem I wish I’d written! – Billy Collins (Poetry)


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Fish Anthology 2023

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… 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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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From the Bering Strait

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Scrap Magic

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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

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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

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

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News & Articles

Fish Anthology 2024

Fish Anthology 2024 LAUNCH

11th June 2024
Monday 15th July at 6:30 Marino (Old Methodist) Church Bantry, West Cork, Ireland The Launch of the Fish Anthology 2024 was held in this charming old methodist church. Many of the authors published in the Anthology read from their work, to showcase sample of  the talent in this book.  We had a get together of […]

Poetry Prize 2024: Results

15th May 2024
  Winners Short-list Long-list     Here are the winners of the Fish Poetry Prize 2024, selected by Billy Collins, to be published in the Fish Anthology 2024. Below you will find short biographies of the winners and the Long and Short Lists. From all of us at Fish we congratulate the poets whose poems […]

Short Story Prize 2023/24: RESULTS

10th April 2024
Winners Short-list Long-list   On behalf of all of us at Fish, congratulations to all of you who made the long and the short-lists.  Apologies for the delay in this announcement. The 10 winners will be published in the Fish Anthology 2024. The launch will be during the West Cork Literary Festival, Bantry, Ireland – […]

Flash Fiction Prize 2024: RESULTS

10th April 2024
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 […]

Short Memoir Prize 2024: RESULTS

1st April 2024
Winners Short-list Long-list   On behalf of all of us at Fish, we congratulate the 10 winners who’s memoir made it into the Fish Anthology 2024 (due to be launched in July ’24 at the West Cork Literary Festival), and to those writers who made the long and short-lists, well done too.  Thank you to Sean […]

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