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Poetry Prize 2019: Results, Short & Long-lists.

 

 

Winners

Short-list

Long-list

 


 

Winners

Here are the 10 winning poems, as chosen by judge Billy Collins, to be published in the Fish Anthology 2019

The Fish Anthology 2019 will be launched as part of the West Cork Literary Festival  (July 2019).
All of the writers published in the Anthology are invited to read at the launch.

Top 10 stories will be published in the FISH ANTHOLOGY 2019
1st prize: €1,000
2nd: a week in residence at Anam Cara Writer’s and Artist’s Retreat.
3rd:€200

Billy Collins

Billy Collins

Comments on the top 3 winning poems are from Billy Collins (below), who we sincerely thank for lending his time and experience to judge the prize.

Congratulations to the nine winning poets (one of the poets, Alex Grant, has two poems selected) and also to the poets whose poems made the short-list of 56, and to the poets who made the long-list of 183. Total entry was 1,641. 

The overall winning poem Not My Michael Furey, by A.M. Cousins (link).
More about the nine winning poets (link)

 

 

 

The Ten Winners:

 

Selected by poet, Billy Collins, to be published in the Fish Anthology 2019

FIRST

 

 

Anne Cousins

Not My Michael Furey

SECOND

 

 

Stephen de Búrca

 

The Morning I Read Yesterday’s
‘Daily Mirror’

THIRD

 

 

Colette Tennant

Rehearsals

 

 

 

HONORARY MENTIONS

 

 

Judith Janoo

Sugar Kelp

Kerry Rawlinson

Kindling

Soma Mei
Sheng Frazier

No Results for that Place

Alex Grant

Raiding my Dead Mother-in-Law’s Pharmaceuticals

Alex Grant

That One Time I Decided To Be All About Eschewing Obfuscation

 

Leah C Stetson

Capes and Daggers

John Michael
Ruskovich

Tequila Sunrise?

 

 

BILLY COLLIN’S COMMENTS ON THE TOP THREE:

 

Not My Michael Furey by Anne Cousins

‘After immediately contextualizing itself with its reference to Joyce’s “The Dead,” this poem uses a deceptively simple diction to invite the reader into the mind and heart of its charmingly girlish narrator.  Not a word is wasted in the clean, spare lines of this beguiling, bittersweet poem.’ – Billy Collins

 

The Morning I Read Yesterday’s ‘Daily Mirror’ by Stephen de Búrca

‘A clever take-off on Frank O’Hara’s startlingly everyday elegy for Billie Holiday, this poem even looks like the original.  It’s most like O’Hara’s in that the elegy becomes the moment of the news (both in newspapers) of death, rather than a later meditation on the significance of the loss.  The poem’s finest accomplishment is the delicate balance it maintains between the levity of satire and the gravity of the loss of an irreplaceable person.’ – Billy Collins

 

Rehearsals by Colette Tennant

‘Two stanzas are just the right form for this poem which moves from regrets about one’s mother to the more venial sins of childhood before circling back to the hypnotized mother’s vision of her own dying. Remorse may run wild, but the fresh images (“snot-angry bull,” “gaudy apple”) stabilize this unsettling and nicely unresolved poem.’ – Billy Collins

 

 

WINNING POEM:

Not my Michael Furey

by Anne Cousins

After James Joyce.

 

While the girls watched the boys kick a ball

 on a scuffed patch of earth behind the school,

 I hid in the pre-fab hut that served

 as library and refuge to the bashful.

 There was shelter among chipboard shelves

 where books offered solace to a child

 weary of feigning interest in the chatter

 of fashion and elusive boyfriends.

 

Here were English girls learning life-lessons

in progressive boarding-schools; young women

in the Chalet novels bravely dodged Nazis;

and Miss Heyer’s Regency heroines –

all sprig muslin and beribboned bonnets –

were tastefully romanced by young bucks,

with chequered pasts and endless supplies

of starched cravats, who drove fast phaetons

and could tame a giddy young filly

with one smouldering, masterful glance.

 

Sometimes I saw a boy near the Crime shelf –

barely thirteen, fingers and teeth nicotined

as a man’s. Once we talked and he held out

his yellow hands to show their tremor –

he suffered with the nerves – he liked a thriller,

a mystery to solve, Poirot was the best.

I preferred Miss Marple’s investigations

among the murdering genteel classes.

 

If I ever thought of him after that

I would have imagined him on his tractor,

the cab filled with smoke as he turned the sod

in neat lines on his father’s beet-field.

 

Some years later, my mother wrote me –

the priest had called his name at mass,

requested prayers for his soul’s repose;

she heard the talk at the chapel-gate –

he was found in the barn, no mystery

how his life of hardship came to an end.

 

He was not my Michael Furey, never

my tender young love but I think of him

often – in a makeshift library long ago,

wits pitted against a fictional detective

and a small, shy girl for company.

 

 

MORE ABOUT THE WINNERS:

ANNE COUSINS was born in 1958 and has lived most of her life in Wexford Town. The arrival of her first grandchild in 2013 brought the realization that she was not getting any younger and she decided to run away and join the MA (Creative Writing) class in UCD.  Her plan to write a perfect short story was scuppered by her conversion to poetry. She is working on her first collection and her work can be found in various literary magazines including Poetry Ireland Review, The Stinging Fly, and on the website Poethead.

STEPHEN DE BÚRCA is working towards an MFA in poetry at the University of Florida under the guidance of Ange Mlinko. From Galway City, Stephen has worked at art-residencies in Iceland and the Netherlands. His poetry has previously appeared in publications such as Crannóg and Skylight47.

COLETTE TENNANT, along with being an English Professor, plays keyboard in a garage band with a twenty-two-year-old drummer and a millionaire on the sax. At her university, she leads a group of student poets called Stinky Bagels. She lives in Oregon, one hour from the Cascade Mountains to the east, one hour from the Pacific Ocean to the west. Her most recent book, Religion in The Handmaid’s Tale: a Brief Guide will be published in September, 2019. On a recent DNA test, she found out she’s 80% Irish.

JUDITH JANOO lives in Vermont, US, near the Canadian border where the smoke plume from her chimney goes straight up on cold days. She grew up by the sea rowing a dinghy before she rode a bike.  Teaching yoga nidra, she sometimes puts others to sleep,  which is not her intention in poetry. She sings to warblers and chickadees in the voice she hears, and thinks that they are singing back. 

Decades ago, autodidact & bloody-minded optimist KERRY RAWLINSON gravitated from sunny Zambian skies to solid Canadian soil, nurturing family and a career in Architectural Design. Fast-forward: she follows Literature & Art’s Muses around the glorious Okanagan, still barefoot, her patient husband ensuring she’s fed. Her photo-artwork, poetry & flash fiction have won contests, and feature in international literary publications. Kerry has become addicted to Canadian snowscapes; but she still pines for Zambian avacados.  http://kerryrawlinson.tumblr.com/; @kerryrawli

SOMA MEI SHENG FRAZIER, like the speaker in No Results for that Place, is between homes—relocating from California, where she’s served as a San Francisco Library Laureate, to New York, for a professorship at SUNY Oswego. Frazier’s sweet tooth demands sugar in everything but poetry and prose. Her work has earned nods from authors and entities ranging from Nikki Giovanni to Daniel Handler; HBO and Zoetrope: All-Story to Glimmer Train and the Mississippi Review.

ALEX GRANT has been a shepherd, a dental technician, a rope-maker, an electro-plater, an optical technician, a software applications developer and a Business Solutions Architect. He has released five poetry collections and has received The Pavel Srut Poetry Fellowship, The Kakalak Poetry Prize, The Randall Jarrell Chapbook Prize and The Oscar Arnold Young Award. He was included in Best New Poets 2007. A native Scot, he lives in North Carolina with his wife, his dangling participles and his Celtic fondness for excess.

LEAH C STETSON writes poetry at Nixie’s Vale beside a black-ash seep and a vortex. Eco-heroine and spiritual mermaid, Leah’s love of writing spawned at the mouth of the Sheepscot River in Maine. She holds a master’s degree in human ecology. Her writing has appeared in Arsenic Lobster, Off the Coast, Sea Stories: the Littoral Issue. Leah is a Research Fellow in the Interdisciplinary PhD program at University of Maine in a tenacious pursuit of deep, Romantic ecology.

JOHN MICHAEL RUSKOVICH “Mike” Ruskovich taught high school English in northern Idaho for 36 years, and now he lives with his wife on the Camas Prairie near Grangeville, ID. His poetry has appeared in The Classical Poets Society journal, and his song lyrics appear throughout the novel Idaho, written by his daughter and published by Random House in 2017. Her essay about his poetry, titled “The Weight of My Father’s Poems,” can be found on LitHub. 

 

 


 

Short-list:

(alphabetical order)

There are 56 poems in the short-list. The total entry was 1,641.

 

TITLE

FIRST NAME

LAST NAME

Kintsukuroi

Gail

Anderson

Observation

Valerie

Bence

Nancy saw you dancing

Jackie

Bennett

No natural law

Jackie

Bennett

Out There In The Rain

Carole

Berkson

Ode to Sex with You

Michelle

Bitting

Pinball

Dean

Browne

Requiem

patricia

cantwell

Not my Michael Furey

A.M.

Cousins

A Poet’s Guide to Photography: The Bokeh

Johnna

Crawford

The Morning I Read Yesterday’s ‘Daily Mirror’

Stephen

de Búrca

Seasalted

Elaine

Desmond

MAN POEM WITH A KNIFE

Judy

Durrant

Blackout

Diane

Fahey

Climate Change

Mary

Fitzpatrick

No Results for That Place

Soma Mei Sheng

Frazier

octopus in the room

Dean

Gessie

Raiding My Dead Mother-in-Law’s Pharmaceuticals

Alex

Grant

That One Time I Decided To Be
All About Eschewing Obfuscation

Alex

Grant

Minutiae

Rosalind

Hudis

Room 764

Peter

Hudson

Ringing the Changes

Steven

Jackson

Sugar Kelp

Judith

Janoo

Man of Ice

PETER UALRIG

KENNEDY

CLOSER

Stacey

Lawrence

Doctor

Zachary

Loewenstein

Her Father

Niamh

MacCabe

Stark’s Ink

Niamh

MacCabe

How We Remember Our Bones

John

MacDonald

Upon The Hill

Lindsey

McLeod

Late Hydrangea

Lorraine

McLeod

writing bloomsbury 1924

Norm

Neill

At Loughborough Junction…

Christopher

North

She’s Wonderful

Michael

O’Connor

Readers’ Night at the
London Review Bookshop

Judy

O’Kane

Closing Time

Matthew

Oliver

Annie

Patricia

Osborne

kindling

Kerry

Rawlinson

Metamorphosis

Lee

Romer Kaplan

Listening for your return

Elizabeth

Rose

Tequila Sunrise?

John Michael

Ruskovich

The Dark Gatherer

Kim

Schroeder

Capes and Daggers

Leah

Stetson

Robert Hugh

Anne

Taylor

Rehearsals

Colette

Tennant

The Bends

Roger

Vickery

Tandem

Dana

Walrath

Rumination

Angela

Washington

Halter

Grace

Wilentz

The Ring

Sarah

Wimbush

Luger, 1948

Guinotte

Wise

Asleep Before The Fire Dies

Aram

Wool

Roundabouts

Dorothy

Yamamoto

The House of Fiction

James

Bowden

Walking on Edinburgh Hill

Lynda

McDonald

     
     

 

 

 


 

Long-list:

(alphabetical order)

There are 183 poems in the long-list. The total entry was 1,641.

 

 

TITLE

FIRST NAME

LAST NAME

Well Lived

Lynda

Allen

Death of an Anchorman

Savkar

Altinel

Kintsukuroi

Gail

Anderson

When I was young and
buildings were already old

Karen

Ashe

God must be a polyglot

Karen

Ashe

Decompression

Debbie

Bayne

Green Hall

John

Beaton

bedtime reading

Taylor

Bell

Observation

Valerie

Bence

Nancy saw you dancing

Jackie

Bennett

No natural law

Jackie

Bennett

Out There In The Rain

Carole

Berkson

Ode to Sex with You

Michelle

Bitting

Portmanteau

Sharon

Black

Hearing Joni

Denise

Blake

Upon Hearing Amy Winehouse
at St. James Church in Dingle

Partridge

Boswell

Prayer

Partridge

Boswell

Pinball

Partridge

Boswell

Singing School

Partridge

Boswell

The Optimist Files

Partridge

Boswell

The House of Fiction

James

Bowden

Auld Lang Syne

Susan

Browne

Pinball

Dean

Browne

In Tarry Flynn’s Shoes

Mary

Campbell

Requiem

Patricia

Cantwell

A kiss and a girl

Veronica

Casey

Magnolia Wall

Veronica

Casey

Road Kill

Helen

Chinitz

Autism

Leo

Cole Snider

The Lighthouse

Colette

Colfer

Special Red

Briony

Collins

Moth

Briony

Collins

The Poem That Was Never Meant To Be

Daniel Roy

Connelly

Too Big For This World

Alexandra

Corrin-Tachibana

A Sighting

Christine

Cote

WAKE, Midwinter 1980

A.M.

Cousins

Not my Michael Furey

A.M.

Cousins

Angels and Witches

Ann

Craig

A Poet’s Guide to Photography: The Bokeh

Johnna

Crawford

Beautiful Lofty Things

C

DALLAT

If Dogs Had Hands

Claudia

Daventry

Crépuscule

Claudia

Daventry

The Morning I Read Yesterday’s ‘Daily Mirror’

Stephen

de Búrca

Seasalted

Elaine

Desmond

Breastfeed

Koraly

Dimitriadis

Requiem

Marylou

DiPietro

Gravediggers’ Strike, New York, 1970

Susan

DuMond

MAN POEM WITH A KNIFE

Judy

Durrant

After Learning that Derek Killed Himself,
I Remember

Teresa

Dzieglewicz

in the shadows of the past

Jo

Ellis

Blackout

Diane

Fahey

Choices

Laila

Farnes

The Superintendent’s Report

Frank

Farrelly

Goreme (and elsewhere)

Michael

Farren

How to

Stephanie

Feeney

Epiphany

Peter J

Filkins

TURN AROUND

Steven

Finley

between the silences

James

Finnegan

Climate Change

Mary

Fitzpatrick

Will You Please

Lili

Flanders

a small poem

Danielle

Fontaine

No Results for That Place

Soma Mei Sheng

Frazier

Leviathan

Maureen

Gallagher

octopus in the room

Dean

Gessie

The Metaphysics of Flight

Carmine

Giordano

Hazel the Color (An Irish Song)

Ellen

Girardeau

Cosmic Joke

Alex

Grant

Raiding My Dead Mother-in-Law’s
Pharmaceuticals

Alex

Grant

That One Time I Decided To Be
All About Eschewing Obfuscation

Alex

Grant

Late-Night Gardening

Jonathan

Greenhause

How We’re Methodically Picked Off

Jonathan

Greenhause

Proposal in Alappuzha

Shay

Griffin

Identity

Arlene

Grubbs

And your text said

Stuart

Handysides

Three Questions for the Buddha

David

Hargreaves

Gull-Woman

David

Hargreaves

That Feeling When…California is on Fire

Matt

Hohner

Minutiae

Rosalind

Hudis

Room 764

Peter

Hudson

Your Feet (A Lament)

Isabel

Huggan

The Names of Seaweed and
Collective Nouns for Birds

Mandy

Huggins

Dressing Room

Penelope

Hughes

Eurydice

Garrett

Igoe

Ringing the Changes

Steven

Jackson

Sugar Kelp

Judith

Janoo

The Missing

Des

Kavanagh

The Venus Effect

John D.

Kelly

Dance of the Machete

Sarah

Kelly

Man of Ice

PETER UALRIG

KENNEDY

In Traction

Jay

Kidd

Vermont Moment

Mel

Konner

The Politics of Seeing

Judith

Krause

The London Ladies Pond in February

Judith

Krause

Last Days

Francesca

La Nave

Hiding from Daddy

Ashley

Lancaster

SPARED

Stacey

Lawrence

CLOSER

Stacey

Lawrence

Forgotten Things

Sarah

Levine

The Butcher’s Thumbs

Deborah

Livingstone

Doctor

Zachary

Loewenstein

Opossum Nights

sandra

longley

Her Father

Niamh

MacCabe

Stark’s Ink

Niamh

MacCabe

How We Remember Our Bones

John

MacDonald

Astronautical

Anna

Mae

Diving

Jessica

Malcom

Mornings At Carrowniskey

Kilcoyne

Marian

FINDING JOYCE

JOHN

MCCABE

Half-Mass

Kevin

McCarthy

Five Seven Five

Lynda

McDonald

Tokens

Lynda

McDonald

Cartier-Bresson takes Sunday Communion

Lynda

McDonald

Walking on Edinburgh Hill

Lynda

McDonald

Prairie 1861

Christine

McDonough

Wonder

Lorraine

McLeod

Upon The Hill

Lindsey

McLeod

Late Hydrangea

Lorraine

McLeod

Indigo

Bruce

Meyer

Ants

Bruce

Meyer

The Best Time to Grow a Beard

Bruce

Meyer

The Bell Ringer of Iturbide

Bruce

Meyer

Encounter

sally

michaelson

Ledes

Philip

Miller

i was home when it arrived

Paul

Mullen

Almost

Carla

Myers

writing bloomsbury 1924

Norm

Neill

Small Craft Advisories

Bo

Niles

At Loughborough Junction…

Christopher

North

Winter: Two Mornings

Bridget

O’Bernstein

She’s Wonderful

Michael

O’Connor

Compass / Witch

Laurence

O’Dwyer

Right of Way

Judy

O’Kane

Garryvoe

Judy

O’Kane

Readers’ Night at the
London Review Bookshop

Judy

O’Kane

Closing Time

Matthew

Oliver

Postcard from Galway

Colette

Olney

Evening at Kuerners

Patricia

Osborne

Annie

Patricia

Osborne

Dior

Romola

Parish

Alone in the Kitchen

Anthony

Powers

The One Word I Can’t Seem to Say

Grace

Qualls

Formica

Maggie

Rainey-Smith

Quarryman

Olivia

Rana

kindling

Kerry

Rawlinson

Opposites

Howard

Robertson

Metamorphosis

Lee

Romer Kaplan

Listening for your return

Elizabeth

Rose

At the US Immigration Desk, New York City

Julie-ann

Rowell

Tequila Sunrise?

John Michael

Ruskovich

The Dark Gatherer

Kim

Schroeder

Au Moulin de la Galette

Derek

Sellen

On the Birth of Hades

Dean

Shaban

Middle School

Derek

Sheffield

Her Present

Derek

Sheffield

Geometry Angels

Stuart

Smith

Dear Love

Lisa

St John

The Breach

Larry

Stapleton

Clothesemane

vincent

steed

Capes and Daggers

Leah

Stetson

Wind in a Box

Andrea

Stock

robert hugh

Anne

Taylor

MOURNING SONG

Avery

Taylor Moore

Thankful I Find Her Anyway

Colette

Tennant

Rehearsals

Colette

Tennant

The Poet

Ann

Thompson

Through flame

Samuel

Ugbechie

Once again

Samuel

Ugbechie

The Bends

Roger

Vickery

Seascape

rob

wallis

Tandem

Dana

Walrath

To See

Andrea

Ward

Rumination

Angela

Washington

The Plain in Flames

Christopher

Watson

Ghost of a Flea

Dominic

Weston

The Irish Hunger Memorial, Battery Park

Grace

Wilentz

Coral Castle

Grace

Wilentz

Halter

Grace

Wilentz

The Ring

Sarah

Wimbush

Marram

Elisabeth

Winkler

As If There Were More Than One

William

Winston

Do Not Touch

Sandra Ann

Winters

Anthurium

Sandra Ann

Winters

Luger, 1948

Guinotte

Wise

Asleep Before The Fire Dies

Aram

Wool

Alhambra

Raphael

Woolf

Imagining the Lares

Steve

Xerri

Roundabouts

Dorothy

Yamamoto

 

 

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Feathers & Cigarettes

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


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Franklin’s Grace

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


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Asylum 1928

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


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Five O’Clock Shadow

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


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From the Bering Strait

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


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Scrap Magic

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


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Dog Day

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


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The Stranger

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


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The Fish Garden

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


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12 Miles Out – a novel by Nick Wright

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


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Altergeist – a novel by Tim Booth

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


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

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


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

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


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News & Articles

Story Prize 2023: Long-list

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

Launch of the Fish Anthology 2023

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

Poetry Prize 2023: RESULTS

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

Flash Fiction Prize 2023: RESULTS

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

Short Memoir Prize: Results 2023

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

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