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Poetry Prize 2025: RESULTS

May 15th, 2025 | Uncategorized | Comments Off on Poetry Prize 2025: RESULTS

 

Winners

Short-list

Long-list

 


 

Here are the winners of the Fish Poetry Prize 2025, selected by Billy Collins, to be published in the Fish Anthology 2025.

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 made it here. There were 1,886 entries and competition was very tough.

Billy Collins

Billy Collins.

The Fish Anthology will  be launched as part of the West Cork Literary Festival, (Marino Church, Bantry, West Cork Wednesday 16th July – 18.30.) All are welcome!

 

 

FIRST PRIZE:

Michael Lavers, winner of the Fish Poetry Prize 2025

The Harvesters by Michael Lavers  (Read Winning Poem)

Another of Michael Lavers’s poem, On Cabbages, is an honorary mention. 

 

 

SECOND PRIZE:

Prayer at the Cove by Wes Lee

 

 

THIRD PRIZE:

A zuihitsu on how everything is about my estranged father by Sue Burge

 

 

 

HONORARY MENTIONS (In no particular order): 

 

On Meeting Shakespeare in the Supermarket  by Kate Bailey

 

 

Aubade to my Phlebotomist  by Partridge Boswel

 

 

Blitzkrieg in the Library by Seamus Scanlon

 

 

Whatever else by Jane Williams

 

 

The Fisherboy´s Knots by Paris Rosemont

 

 

Kells Turning by Elaine O’Connor

 

 

 

 

BIOGRAPHIES

Michael Lavers is the author of two poetry collections, After Earth and The Inextinguishable, both published by the University of Tampa Press. His poems have appeared in Ploughshares, The Kenyon Review, AGNI, Southwest Review, The Georgia Review, and elsewhere. He has been awarded the University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor’s International Poetry Prize, the Moth Poetry Prize, and theBridport Poetry Prize. He teaches poetry at Brigham Young University.

Wes Lee has three poetry collections. Most recently she was  awarded the Magma Editors’ Prize 2024/05; the 2024 Free Verse Prize, by The Poetry Society, in London; the Heroines/Joyce Parkes Women’s Writing Prize 2022, in New South Wales, and placed in The Plaza Poetry Prize 2025. Her short story ‘How They Live Now’ was the subject of The Stinging Fly Podcast for September 2022, originally selected by Sally Rooney and read by Susannah Dickey, in Dublin.

Sue Burge is a freelance writer, mentor and editor based in North Norfolk, UK. She is also a film-studies tutor with a penchant for silent film, road movies and David Lynch. Her most recent poetry collection, The Artificial Parisienne (Live Canon 2024 ), explores the alter ego she left behind in Paris three decades ago and her edgy on-going relationship with the city. Her eco-angst collection, watch it slowly fade, is forthcoming with Yaffle Press.

Kate Bailey is a violinist and musician who has always enjoyed writing, photography and languages on the side. Her house is rather like a jumble sale, and her garden like a jungle, and she suspects that these analogies extend to the contents of her brain. One of her biggest joys (other than music, eating and her family and friends) is listening to a blackbird singing. She is married with two grown-up daughters and lives in Oxford.

Partridge Boswell is the author of the 2024 Fool for Poetry Prize-winning chapbook Levis Corner House and Grolier Poetry Prize-winning collection Some Far Country. He is co-founder of Bookstock Literary Festival and teaches at Vallum Society for Education in Arts & Letters in Montreal. He troubadours widely with the bard band Los Lorcas—touring Ireland and West Cork’s inhabited islands in support of their new album Wild Island in June 2025.

Seamus Scanlon loves Fish so but not so, fish. Because a vegan. He explores the ambiguity of the Irish towards violence and pressing social issues like skorts in camogie.Recent fiction outings include Walking the Thin Line (Promethean); I Follow (2024 Fish Anthology). Recent drama outings include The McGowan Trilogy, Thomastown (May 2025). Recent gym outings, zero. Recent failings, greater than zero. Recent and recurrent longing, Organico (Bantry). Work in progress – The Skorts Trilogy (Play). www.seamusscanlon.com

Jane Williams was born in England to Irish and Australian parents and was raised in Australia. Widely published and anthologised, Jane is the author of several collections of poems and has featured at readings and festivals in countries including Ireland, Canada, Malaysia and Slovakia. Her poem Whatever else was written during a Hosking Houses Trust Writers’ residency near Stratford-Upon-Avon. Jane lives in Lutruwita/Tasmania. For more: janecwilliams.com

Paris Rosemont is an Asian-Australian poet and author of Banana Girl (2023) and Barefoot Poetess (2025). Her debut was long and shortlisted for Poetry Book Awards 2024 in Australia, Greece and the UK, and was awarded ‘Distinguished Favorite’ in the NYC Independent Press Award 2025 (USA). Paris takes delight in bringing her poetry to life through performance. She has graced stages at events and festivals in almost every state/territory within Australia. Find her at www.parisrosemont.com

Elaine O’Connor raised two children as a solo parent, which drove her into the Civil Service, where imaginative writing was not unknown. Returning to real creative writing, her stories, No Competition and Carmel were Highly Commended in the Historical Writers Association (2024) & Bedford Competitions (2025). The Long Road Home, (unpublished) was short-listed in the Cinnamon Press First Novel competition (2025).  Her next novel, The Herbalists, traces a devout young Victorian woman’s descent to murder. Current ambitions? Find an agent and get those novels published.

 

 


 

 

SHORT-LIST in alphabetical order. (72 poems. Total entry was 1,886) 

Alan Coombe

On the 468 bus

Anne Casey

Night flier

Anne Casey

Shift

Anne Casey

Mal at Mothar

Brian Hill

Egyptian Soul

Carolyn Curtis-Mahoney

Fairy Dust

Christopher Watson

Cicuta / Water Hemlock

Dean Gessie

a theory of everything

Derek Dickinson

Irish Nocturne

Derval Walsh

How to Write a Love Poem

Derval Walsh

Soldiers

Di Slaney

Why changing a duvet is like writing a poem

Doreen Gurrey

Adam and Eve

Elaine O’Connor

Kells Turning

Gail Ingram

Homesick (or imposter syndrome)

Ian Egan

The Poem as Poem

Jane Williams

Whatever else

Jim Conwell

Father Fitzgerald

Johanna Magin

The Prophet Is Dead

Johanna Magin

There ought to be a poem

Johanna Magin

The Fact of Living

Johanna Magin

Small Fires

Johanna Magin

In One Room With a Question

Johanna Magin

Rage Becomes Her

Johanna Magin

Solastalgia

Johanna Magin

10 Bucks

John Bourke

Komorebi

John Walsh

Fenian Dead

John Williams

The Cook’s Shipwreck

Kate Bailey Wilson

On Meeting Shakespeare in the Supermarket

Kathy Miles

Bees

Kerry Gray

Sun setting over Ardglass harbour

Kizziah Burton

If you are taken like Persephone

Kizziah Burton

This Wood I Am of Owl and Ghost

Lou Amyx

When My People Come

Lydia Kennaway

Incident – Recurring Dream No 5

Lynnda Wardle

How far away would you need to be

Marcella Remund

Spirals

Marian Brannigan

Letters from Anamar School 1969

Mary Catherine Lake

The whole length of the long road

Mary Mulholland

Sister, rewind

Matt Hohner

At a Friend’s Grave on His Birthday

Michael Andrew Coverson

Bulls Head Car Park, January 1964

Michael Lavers

The Harvesters

Michael Lavers

On Cabbages

Michael Lavers

Darkness and Rain

Michael Miller

hanging out

Michael Swan

SGM

Michelle Dennehy

Reasons the Goddess Persists in Persuit of the National School Teacher who is the Pure Image of Eamon de Valera

Mike Baynham

QUARTET

Miranda Saake

Rapunzel

Nancy Schoenberger

13 Miller’s Court: Mary Jane Kelly

Paris Rosemont

The Fisherboy’s Knots

Partridge Boswell

Aubade to My Phlebotomist

Patricia Sheppard

Intake at the Juvenile Detention Centre

Patrick Keedy Brown

This Is Not A New Story

paul Newton

The Beginning and the End

Peggy Acott

Town Center Village Assisted Living Facility

Pratibha Castle

THE DAY MY FATHER LOITERS IN THE STREET

Robin Schwarz

Fire in the Palisades

Robin Schwarz

Last August

Seamus Scanlon

Where it Counts

Seamus Scanlon

Blitzcrieg at the Library

Seamus Scanlon

Winnie Battle

Sharon Black

Billy Collins in the Old Coachhouse, En-suite

Shoshauna Shy

(No) Return to Sender

Sue Burge

A zuihitsu on how everything is

about my estranged father

Susanne Kennedy

Lawn Sprinkler

Susanne Kennedy

Spirit Level

Susanne Kennedy

Swimming in the Wet

Susanne Kennedy

Turkey Swan Raptor

Vaughan Hoy

Montblanc

Wes Lee

Prayer at the Cove

 

 


 

 

LONG-LIST in alphabetical order. (242 poems. Total entry was 1,886) 

 

Agnes Dussault

Maybe I keep breaking all of my cellphones because

Áine Rose Connell

The Anxious Brain Resides West of Amygdala Creek

Alan Coombe

Troy Town

Alan Coombe

On the 468 bus

Alan Coombe

On the 468 bus

Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana

Mash-up of Moments in Shizuoka Prefecture

Allen Shadow

Hunter and Me

Anita Gail Tucker

Mother’s Ruin

Anita Gail Tucker

Ashore

Anne Casey

Shift

Anne Casey

Night flier

Anne Casey

Shift

Anne Casey

Mal at Mothar

Anne Cousins

HOLY

Annette Sisson

True North, Tracings, Seizing the Throne

Anthony Lawrence

Listening to James Wright Read…

Bill Richardson

Passage Tomb

Bill Richardson

The Saint’s Eyes, Fixed To The Floor,
Shed Eternal Tears

Brian Hill

Egyptian Soul

Carolyn Curtis-Mahoney

Fairy Dust

Christopher Stocks

The Last of England

Christopher Watson

Smoke Tree

Christopher Watson

Learning to Read

Christopher Watson

Cicuta / Water Hemlock

Christopher Watson

Cicuta / Water Hemlock

Cindy Snow

Relearning the World

Clif Mason

Auabade

Colette Tennant

Trying to Remember What I Never Knew
About my Grandmother

Daniel Dempster

Saltmetallemonspit

David Austin

Home.

Dean Gessie

a theory of everything

Derek Dickinson

Blue Morpho

Derek Dickinson

Icebox Aphorisms

Derek Dickinson

Irish Nocturne

Derval Walsh

How to Write a Love Poem

Derval Walsh

Soldiers

Di Slaney

I am a contract killer

Di Slaney

Me and Mrs Jones

Di Slaney

Road trips

Di Slaney

The little kist

Di Slaney

The weather is another animal

Di Slaney

Eighth poem – Tomato love

Di Slaney

Two horses running through the
streets of central London

Di Slaney

Tenth poem – Why changing a duvet
is like writing a poem

Donna Harlan

Suspension

Doreen Gurrey

Adam and Eve

Dragana Lazici

I try to explain my four identities to
a stranger at a dinner party

Elaine O’Connor

Kells Turning

Elaine O’Connor

Kells Turning

Elena Croitoru

The Likeness

Elisa Alt

Everyone You’ve Ever Loved

Elizabeth Palmerton

Mississippi Barn

Elizabeth Whyatt

Hop Pickers

Elizabeth Whyatt

Anthems

Emma Goldman-Sherman

[Let there be a world of slowness]

Emma Murf

What to Do If You’re Stuck in a Conversation About Fishing

Emma Neale

Matinée Performance in my Aunt and Uncle’s Garden

Fokkina McDonnell

Love poem written on a Zoom workshop
with tutor interventions

G. Smyth Bernes

The heat of his touch

Gail Ingram

Homesick (or imposter syndrome)

Gavin Duffy

Stare Down

Geraldine Stoneham

Letter to Fleur Adcock, c. 1995

Hajri Aga

The Anatomy of a Goat

Harry Bauld

Visiting the Book

Helen Bar Lev

Ceasefire

Helen Pinoff

ORDER

Ian Chambers

Morning Cuppa

Ian Egan

The Poem as Poem

Imogen Osborne

Flies

Irene Evans

Forecast

Jane Williams

Whatever else

Janice Warman

I’ve made a list of things for you to worry about

JAX AINSLEY-RITCHIE

MEDITATION ON MY LEFT HAND

JAX AINSLEY-RITCHIE

Jaws

JAX AINSLEY-RITCHIE

HYACINTHS IN THE HALLWAY

JAX AINSLEY-RITCHIE

Questions for the Oracle

JAX AINSLEY-RITCHIE

In The Kitchen

JAX AINSLEY-RITCHIE

OUT IN THE WOODS

Jean Tuomey

Unannounced

Jed Myers

Poem to My Partner on Her Birthday

Jed Myers

Reflection

Jennifer Dunlop

Ravelling Hope

Jim Conwell

Father Fitzgerald

Johanna Magin

Ode to Ellipses

Johanna Magin

What They Never Tell You

Johanna Magin

Chaos de Huelgoat

Johanna Magin

The New Order

Johanna Magin

We’ve Eaten War

Johanna Magin

10 Bucks

Johanna Magin

The Prophet Is Dead

Johanna Magin

There ought to be a poem

Johanna Magin

The Fact of Living

Johanna Magin

Small Fires

Johanna Magin

In One Room With a Question

Johanna Magin

Rage Becomes Her

Johanna Magin

Solastalgia

Johanna Magin

10 Bucks

John Bourke

Komorebi

John Bourke

Komorebi

John Stapleton

Camus on the Beach

John Stapleton

The End of Encyclopaedias

John Stapleton

Winter Warriors

John Walsh

Fenian Dead

John Williams

Taseko’s Hands

John Williams

The Cook’s Shipwreck

Joseph Hoban

Two Windows

Judith Thurley

The Wind

Julian Wakeling

Samuel Palmer Moon

Karen J McDonnell

Tidal

Kate Bailey Wilson

On Meeting Shakespeare in the Supermarket

Katherine Bonamo

One Last Meeting, On Zoom

Katherine Hahn Falk

Wasted Time

Kathy Miles

1950’s Mothers

Kathy Miles

Washerwoman

Kathy Miles

Bees

Kerry Gray

Sun setting over Ardglass harbour

Kevin Brodie

Tremors

Kevin Smith

A Corner On Bombowlee Creek Road

Kevin Smith

Boulder

Kim Maley

dry

Kizziah Burton

This is a portrait of a mother holding a
candle in the dark

Kizziah Burton

Teaching a Girl to Talk in Our Language

Kizziah Burton

Wild Strawberries

Kizziah Burton

The Child in the Winds

Kizziah Burton

The Old Road Tells Me The Way is Long and Narrow

Kizziah Burton

I Am Afraid of Dying

Kizziah Burton

Something higher than my soul was trapped

Kizziah Burton

If you are taken like Persephone

Kizziah Burton

This Wood I Am of Owl and Ghost

KP McCarthy

Near to Nether

Lana Holman

Give Me a Day

Lani O’Hanlon

Uile Uice/All Heal

Lani O’Hanlon

For Rain

Lee Stockdale

Oh, Sister

Lesley Sharpe

Spell to quell a storm

Lesley Sharpe

The unbroken line of ink

Lesley Sharpe

Out of season

Lesley Sharpe

Hindsight

Lou Amyx

When My People Come

Lou Amyx

When My People Come

Lou Lesovitch

The Gift

Lydia Kennaway

Incident – Recurring Dream No 5

Lynnda Wardle

How far away would you need to be

Lynne S Viti

Crazy Legs at St. Rita’s Fair

Madeleine Lamm

Louisville

Marcella Remund

Spirals

Marian Brannigan

Letters from Anamar School 1969

Marion Quednau

Ivory

Mary Catherine Lake

Searching for a lost lottery ticket

Mary Catherine Lake

It was written in the margin

Mary Catherine Lake

The whole length of the long road

Mary Mulholland

how to choose a new washing machine

Mary Mulholland

Sister, rewind

Matt Hohner

At a Friend’s Grave on His Birthday

Melanie Tibbs

The Day the Poet Came to Our Town

Michael Andrew Coverson

Bulls Head Car Park, January 1964

Michael Lavers

The Leap

Michael Lavers

On Hearing the Buddhist Describe her Enightenment

Michael Lavers

The Harvesters

Michael Lavers

On Cabbages

Michael Lavers

Darkness and Rain

Michael Miller

hanging out

Michael Pearce

Queen Sidra

Michael Pearce

Bucket of Noise

Michael Shoemaker

détente

Michael Swan

Everything was very interesting

Michael Swan

SGM

Michelle Dennehy

Reasons the Goddess Persists in Persuit of the National School Teacher who is the Pure Image of Eamon de Valera

Mike Baynham

NEVER ONCE

Mike Baynham

COOKING

Mike Baynham

SNOWFALL

Mike Baynham

AN T-EILIAN MUILEACH

Mike Baynham

QUARTET

Miranda Saake

Rapunzel

Nan Montgomery

Common Blue

Nancy Schoenberger

13 Miller’s Court: Mary Jane Kelly

Nancy Steinkraus

Grace

Nicholas Rice

Beacon

Paris Rosemont

The Fisherboy’s Knots

Partridge Boswell

Aubade to My Phlebotomist

Partridge Boswell

Aubade to My Phlebotomist

Patricia Demery

Sticky Lozenge

Patricia Sheppard

Underwater Search and Recovery Unit

Patricia Sheppard

Intake at the Juvenile Detention Centre

Patrick Keedy Brown

This Is Not A New Story

Paul Newton

The Beginning and the End

Paul Newton

The Beginning and the End

Paula Brancato

Love

Peggy Acott

Town Center Village Assisted Living Facility

Peter Lindley

Foundling

Peter Tadd

Quantum High

Phil Hawtin

On Walking from Albert Bridge to Marden

Pratibha Castle

THE DAY MY FATHER LOITERS IN THE STREET

Raymond Ferik

Cloister

Rob Barth

George

Rob Ritchie

Mother, Moon

Robin Schwarz

Fire in the Palisades

Robin Schwarz

Last August

Robin Schwarz

Fire in the Palisades

Robin Schwarz

Last August

Robin Shohet

Parlez-vous Love?

Roger Bonner

Ocean Days

Róisín Leggett Bohan

I Lose My Mother

Róisín Leggett Bohan

We Lost Baby Jesus

Sandy Longley

Please Let Us Know How We Did

Seamus Scanlon

Where it Counts

Seamus Scanlon

Winnie Battle

Seamus Scanlon

Blitzcrieg at the Library

Seán Ó Dálaigh

Crying on the Dancefloor

Seohyun Lee

Poetry Prize Submission

Seth Kronick

Learning to Love the Feeling of Falling

Sharon Black

Billy Collins in the Old Coachhouse, En-suite

Shelley Stenhouse

When a Hand Comes Home with Yo…

Shoshauna Shy

(No) Return to Sender

Sinéad Griffin

Naming a Baby

Soma Mei Sheng Frazier

Budapest

Stephen Pollock

Diabolus in Musica

Sue Burge

A zuihitsu on how everything
is about my estranged father

Susan Dines

Imposter Syndrome

Susan Landgraf

Frogs

Susan Taylor

Making Sense

Susanne Kennedy

Lawn Sprinkler

Susanne Kennedy

Spirit Level

Susanne Kennedy

Swimming in the Wet

Susanne Kennedy

Turkey Swan Raptor

Sylvia Cohen

I Talk to my Father Across the Styx

Thomas Williamson

The Last of All I Loved

Tim Relf

Be 100% satisfied EVERY SINGLE TIME

Tom Moore

Lunch Poem

Veronica A. Bettencourt

The Gloomy Octopus

Veronica A. Bettencourt

Panini Maker

 V. P. Loggins

Baptism

Vanessa Lampert

Almost Certainly

Vaughan Hoy

Montblanc

Wes Lee

The Newborn

Wes Lee

A City Wakes

Wes Lee

Prayer at the Cove

Terence McGinity

Help is Coming

Flash Fiction Prize 2025: RESULTS

April 18th, 2025 | Uncategorized | Comments Off on Flash Fiction Prize 2025: RESULTS

Winners

Short-list

Long-list

 

From all of us at Fish, thank you for entering your flash stories. Congratulations to the writers who  were short or long-listed, and in particular to the 10 winners whose flash stories will be published in the Fish Anthology 2025.

The launch will be during the West Cork Literary Festival, Bantry, Ireland – 16 July. Venue: Marino Church, 6.30 pm. It is a free event and all are welcome.

 
 

 

Winners

Tania Hershman

Judge, Tania Hershman.

Here are the 10 winning Flash Fiction Stories, as chosen by Tania Hershman, to be published in the FISH ANTHOLOGY 2025.

Comments (below) on the flash stories are from Tania, who we sincerely thank for her time and expertise. 

 

 

 

FIRST:
Lover 
by
Allegra Mullan Allegra Mullan - Flash Fiction Prize Winner
SECOND:
Empty Space
   by
Justine Sweeney Justine Sweeney Flash Fiction Prize Winner
THIRD:
Breath and Bone
   by
Letty Butler Letty Butler -Flash Fiction Prize Winner

 

HONORARY MENTIONS
(no particular order)

   

I’ve Lost a Lot of Friends Through Love  by

Ralph Storer Ralph Storer - Flash Fiction Prize Winner
A.W.O.L   by Lisa Donoghue Lisa Donoghue - Flash Fiction Prize Winner
For a Good Time, Call . . .   by Annalisa McMorrow Annalisa McMorrow - Flash Fiction Prize Winner
Leaving in Four   by Rebekah Clarkson Rebekah Clarkson - Flash Fiction Prize Winner
Picture This   by       

Simon Roberts

Simon Roberts - 
Flash Fiction Prize Winner
Transformations   by

Shakira Christodoulou

Shakira Christodoulou - Flash Fiction Prize Winner
My Father’s Wedding   by

Xavier Combe

Xavier Combe - Flash Fiction Prize Winner

 

Allegra Mullan is a writer of fiction and poetry. She is 23 years old and lives in London. Her work has been published in the Keats-Shelly Review, The Fish Anthology, SomeSuch Magazine and Toe-Rag, amongst others.

Justine Sweeney is from Belfast in the north of Ireland. She writes software code but finds writing fiction much more interesting. Her first collection of stories was shortlisted in the Bath Novella-in-flash Award 2025, and she was shortlisted in the Fish Short Story Award 2025. Her work appears in the Dublin Review, Fictive Dream, Inkfish Magazine, Flash Fiction Magazine and other places. She has an MA in Creative Writing and is working on her first novel.

Letty Butler is a writer and performer with a penchant for tarot cards and cheap granola. She writes across multiple genres and has just finished her second novel. This isn’t her first Fish-flavoured rodeo—she landed The Short Story Prize in 2023—and has been trying (and failing) to score a hat-trick ever since. Coming 3rd this year has really egged her on. She’s Brighton-based and represented by Alexander Cochran at Greyhound Literary. 

Ralph Storer is a widely-travelled writer best known for his award-winning series of guidebooks to the Scottish mountains. His other books include Love Scenes (a novel about films and the single life in Edinburgh), The Joy of Hillwalking and The Sex Trivia Quiz Book. He loves to disappear with a tent into the mountains of the American West, while at home he satisfies his love of adventure by attempting to create darkwave music on his computer.

Lisa Donoghue hated every single day she spent at school, so no one was more surprised than her when she became an English teacher.  She left the UK in 2005 to travel the world for a year or two, and twenty years later she has still not returned. She is currently living and teaching in Suzhou, China.

Annalisa McMorrow is an insomniac writer living in rural Northern California. But once upon a time, she lived in Los Angeles, where she worked (in no particular order) as a popcorn girl, masseuse, receptionist, casting assistant, and ghostwriter. She once won a deejay slot by penning a murder mystery in under 50 words. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, on KQED radio, and in multiple magazines that start with the letter “P.”

Rebekah Clarkson lives on Peramangk land in South Australia. Her short story cycle, Barking Dogs is published by Affirm Press. Her award-winning short stories appear in Best Australian Stories and Something Special, Something Rare: Outstanding Short Stories by Australian Women’(Black Inc.). Her short memoir, Dominion was recently published in The Louisville Review and forms part of a broader memoir/fiction project exploring family, religion, and missing mothers. Rebekah possesses the world’s worst sense of direction.

Simon Roberts is Based in West London. He writes short fiction and plays, and has been nominated for a number of prizes including the Bridport Short Story Prize (2023) and the Cranked Anvil Short Story Prize (2024). He was a finalist in the Plaza Prizes Short Story Award (2024). He makes regular appearances on Story Radio Podcast. Simon’s adaptation of Patrick Hamilton’s The Slaves of Solitude premiered at the Questors Theatre last year. Website: Simon Roberts 

Shakira Christodoulou is a slightly niche jack-of-all-trades. Her outsize animal sculptures amused and confused island communities in Britain and Canada, she’s painted murals some liked and some didn’t, led habitat restoration for a tiny Island NGO, and is a novelist and part-time Egyptologist. People have kindly published her words on mummies, cats, and fungus, and asked her for poetry about conservation. She writes on Bluesky, and Youtubes about wildlife gardening, as WellManneredXS.

Xavier Combe is a freelance translator and conference interpreter based in France. He teaches at the University of Paris X. He has authored 2 non-fiction books and a novel in France as well as quite a few (moderately) philological op-eds in the French press. He writes and narrates most of the stories for the award-winning absurdist fiction podcast Muffy Drake produced by 2-time Peabody Award winner Jim Hall. www.muffydrake.com


 

Comments from judge, Tania Hershman

 

I had a very very hard time – harder than usual – choosing between my top three stories, it was like comparing an apple with a fighter jet with a grain of sand. Since I am not allowed to present a three-way tie, I made the choices I was required to make with only a nanogap between these three brilliant pieces. For me, they are sublime examples of the enormity of what can be conveyed in a flash story, and not just what happens but how the writer decides to bring it to us, the effect of shapes and forms on the page and how they intrigue the reader’s eye as well as the language, the characters, the story.

 

I found it fascinating, having judged no small number of short and short short fiction competitions, that this time there were almost no fancy, weird, complicated titles across the shortlist I was given to read. A title can do a great deal of work, especially for short pieces, whether prose, poetry or hybrids, and I think it’s worth keeping in mind and spending some time on. A title might come straight away, or might emerge slowly as you work on a piece, or afterwards. Sometimes the simplest of titles, just one or two words, is exactly right, but sometimes more is actually more!

 

Anyway, without further ado, congratulations first to the longlist, the shortlist, and, in fact, everyone who sends their work out into the world to be not only read but judged. It is an act of courage, of optimism, please keep doing it! And now, please congratulate my three prize-winning flash stories, all of whom rose up out of the shortlist the first time I read them, immedately going into my “Yes” pile, and then offered me more and more and more each time I re-read them. It was an honour to be asking to present my choices, and a privilege to read these stories, which will stay with me for a very long time.

 

1st prize:

Lover by Allegra Mullan

If someone asked what happens in this tiny story, I’d find it hard to answer. In some ways, almost nothing, and from another angle, everything. I was immediately drawn in by the first line, and felt myself assuming how this flash would go. I was utterly delighted to be proved so wrong! The third line started to hint that this was not at all what I had thought it might be. The use of the “you” point of view is perfect, we are seeing through their eyes someone they love, someone they try and understand, looking at so closely that they even notice inside their lover’s mouth. It is intense, intimate, and with a gorgeous oddness in what the writer chooses to include: incongruities, strange pairings, critique of our consumerist society, life and death, tenderness, pain and love – and all in one paragraph. A triumph.

 

2nd prize:

Empty Space by Justine Sweeney

Before even reading this wrenching flash story, seeing it on the page immediately intrigued me, with its playing with form. “Show don’t tell” is a “writing rule” I strongly object to; there are no rules, writers should write what they want in the way that want to write it. That said, I loved what this writer was showing me visually before I’d even stepped into the opening line. The reason I chose this as the second prize winner was because this writer took a plot which might have slipped into cliché and made it completely their own. I was there, I felt and heard what the narrator was feeling and thinking. It was visceral, personal, painful, finished and unfinished in that perfect way I love in a short short story, where you know it’s over and you can’t stop thinking about it.

 

3rd prize:

Breath & Bone by Letty butler

Once again, a story we have heard before, and, once again, a writer takes it and makes it their own, makes it so much more than simply an account of what happens on this one day. Here we have an “I” and a “you”, and we are in that space between them, which is difficult and uncomfortable, made even more so by the excellent use of pacing. The shape of this poignant flash – two short one-sentence paragraphs at the beginning and end, and in the middle, a long one-sentence section – is so well done, as is the precise choice of words and phrases like “fractured”, “snarl”, “guzzling”, and “quiet terror”. This is everything a stunning flash can be, a whole life and a whole world in half a page.

 


 

A LITTLE ABOUT THE WINNERS:

Allegra Mullan is a writer of fiction and poetry. She is 23 years old and lives in London. Her work has been published in the Keats-Shelly Review, The Fish Anthology, SomeSuch Magazine and Toe-Rag, amongst others.

Justine Sweeney is from Belfast in the north of Ireland. She writes software code but finds writing fiction much more interesting. Her first collection of stories was shortlisted in the Bath Novella-in-flash Award 2025, and she was shortlisted in the Fish Short Story Award 2025. Her work appears in the Dublin Review, Fictive Dream, Inkfish Magazine, Flash Fiction Magazine and other places. She has an MA in Creative Writing and is working on her first novel.

Letty Butler is a writer and performer with a penchant for tarot cards and cheap granola. She writes across multiple genres and has just finished her second novel. This isn’t her first Fish-flavoured rodeo—she landed The Short Story Prize in 2023—and has been trying (and failing) to score a hat-trick ever since. Coming 3rd this year has really egged her on. She’s Brighton-based and represented by Alexander Cochran at Greyhound Literary. 

Ralph Storer is a widely-travelled writer best known for his award-winning series of guidebooks to the Scottish mountains. His other books include Love Scenes (a novel about films and the single life in Edinburgh), The Joy of Hillwalking and The Sex Trivia Quiz Book. He loves to disappear with a tent into the mountains of the American West, while at home he satisfies his love of adventure by attempting to create darkwave music on his computer.

Lisa Donoghue hated every single day she spent at school, so no one was more surprised than her when she became an English teacher.  She left the UK in 2005 to travel the world for a year or two, and twenty years later she has still not returned. She is currently living and teaching in Suzhou, China.

Annalisa McMorrow is an insomniac writer living in rural Northern California. But once upon a time, she lived in Los Angeles, where she worked (in no particular order) as a popcorn girl, masseuse, receptionist, casting assistant, and ghostwriter. She once won a deejay slot by penning a murder mystery in under 50 words. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, on KQED radio, and in multiple magazines that start with the letter “P.”

Rebekah Clarkson lives on Peramangk land in South Australia. Her short story cycle, Barking Dogs is published by Affirm Press. Her award-winning short stories appear in Best Australian Stories and Something Special, Something Rare: Outstanding Short Stories by Australian Women’(Black Inc.). Her short memoir, Dominion was recently published in The Louisville Review and forms part of a broader memoir/fiction project exploring family, religion, and missing mothers.  Rebekah possesses the world’s worst sense of direction.

Simon Roberts is Based in West London. He writes short fiction and plays, and has been nominated for a number of prizes including the Bridport Short Story Prize (2023) and the Cranked Anvil Short Story Prize (2024). He was a finalist in the Plaza Prizes Short Story Award (2024). He makes regular appearances on Story Radio Podcast. Simon’s adaptation of Patrick Hamilton’s The Slaves of Solitude premiered at the Questors Theatre last year. Website: Simon Roberts 

Shakira Christodoulou is a slightly niche jack-of-all-trades. Her outsize animal sculptures amused and confused island communities in Britain and Canada, she’s painted murals some liked and some didn’t, led habitat restoration for a tiny Island NGO, and is a novelist and part-time Egyptologist. People have kindly published her words on mummies, cats, and fungus, and asked her for poetry about conservation. She writes on Bluesky, and Youtubes about wildlife gardening, as WellManneredXS.

 

 


 

Short-list:

(Alphabetical order: 30 stories)

 

Alan Gray

Memorable Houses in English Literature

Aline Soules

Abscission

Allegra Antonia Mullan

Lover

Annalisa McMorrow

For a Good Time, Call…

David Antares

Baby

David Stephens

Getting away with it

Gill O’Halloran

The First Rule Of Prostate Club

Ivan Debel

The Author

Joanna Miller

Catching the Moment

Joe Evans

Search History

John Mulligan

Don’t ring this number

John Mulligan

Parking cars and pumping gas

Julie Evans

Gallery: Portrait 1916 (Oil on Canvas)

Justine Sweeney

Empty Space

Karon Alderman

The Hobby Hearse

Letty Butler

Breath & Bone

Lisa Donoghue

A.W.O.L

Lucille Agapov

Beautiful Monster

Neil Oughton

Dance Teacher

Ralph Storer

I’ve Lost a Lot of Friends Through Love

Rebekah Clarkson

Leaving in Four

Rich Buley-Neumar

The Spicy Stuff Eating Contest

Roger Lightfoot

Black Thursday. Spain

Roger Lightfoot

A Room at the Inn

Roger Lightfoot

Young Dylan’s Muse

Shakira Christodoulou

Transformations

Simon Roberts

Picture This

Susan Bennett

The Things That Matter

Tom Bryan

Eevie, Ivy, Over

Virginia Miranda

Adonis

Xavier Combe

My Father’s Wedding

 

 


 

 

Long-list:

In alphabetical order (100)

 

Adana Keane

Lisa Gherardini

Alan Egan

Ruby

Alan Gray

Memorable Houses in English Literature

Aline Soules

Abscission

Allegra Antonia Mullan

Lover

Amy Goodman-Bide

Louise

Andrew Trimble

Overheard I

Andrew Trimble

Overheard II

Anna Hopwood

The Accident

Annalisa McMorrow

For a Good Time, Call

Aspasia Sparages

Fibreboard and January

Barbara Mogerley

Broken Dolls

BRUCE POWELL

Stage Fright

Caroline Clark

Salo

cathy leonard

Vanity Case

Cathy Sampson

The Hunter’s Moon

Chris Cottom

Last Year of English Lit

Chris Phillips

Our flammable selves

Conor Montague

Lovebirds

Dale Marie

The Nautical

Darren Moorhouse

Burnt Threads

Davey Freedman

Bamboo

David Antares

Baby

David Lovell

A Trip to the Park

David Stephens

An Affair of the Heart

David Stephens

Getting away with it

Douglas Cochran

Off Marla

Fiona Ritchie Walker

Shang-a-Lang

Genevieve Methot

The Five-Year Frontier

Gerald Inberg

Anywhere Elementary

Gill O’halloran

The First Rule Of Prostate Club

Henry Hudson

Nothing but the truth

Isabelle Shifrin

Water Bitch

Ivan Debel

The Author

Jeffrey Buppert

Magnolia Pearl

Jeffrey Buppert

So Much Left To Say

Jessica Magee

Black and white

Jim Gleeson

Downward Dog

Jo Skinner

Black Man Running

Joanna Miller

Catching the Moment

Joe Evans

Search History

John Fullman

Scattering My Father’s Ashes

John Mulligan

Don’t ring this number

John Mulligan

One man against the mountain

John Mulligan

Parking cars and pumping gas

John Shirey

Lasting Marriage

Jonny Moore

A Lesson in Boyhood

Julie Evans

Gallery: Portrait 1916 (Oil on Canvas)

Justine Sweeney

Empty Space

K. T. Downs

Apricots and Other Fruit

Karon Alderman

The Hobby Hearse

Katie Beck

The 12th annual dance marathon

Keith Wood

The Portobello Elemental

Kerrie Penney

Black Widows

Kevin MacAlan

Frank

Kevin MacAlan

Housebound

Laura Kyle

T For Transient

Letty Butler

Breath & Bone

Lisa Donoghue

A.W.O.L

Lucille Agapov

Beautiful Monster

Marcus Moore

Things Joburgers did and didn’t tell you before you moved to the Orange Farm township.

Mel Fawcett

Laughing at the Moon

Nancy Freund

Burhan Now or Never

Neil Oughton

Dance Teacher

Niall Rodgers

In search of tiny life

Nicholas Matsas

Getting the Part

Nickie Foley

Smeltin’

Paul Currion

Appetite

Peter Howard

Saskia

Peter Slater

Hands

Philip Wilson

You’ve Been Framed

Phoebe Robertson

Aquarium

Ralph Storer

I’ve Lost a Lot of Friends Through Love

Rebekah Clarkson

Leaving in Four

Rebekah Clarkson

The Night Runners

Rich Buley-Neumar

The Spicy Stuff Eating Contest

Richard Scarsbrook

Blue Line

Richard Scarsbrook

Violets

Roger Lightfoot

Black Thursday. Spain

Roger Lightfoot

A Room at the Inn

Roger Lightfoot

Young Dylan’s Muse

Ronnie Nixon

ALLOTMENTS

Ronnie Nixon

RETROSPECTIVE

Samarth Bhasin

Mr. Masters

Shakira Christodoulou

Transformations

Siân Quill

skinny witch

Simon Roberts

Picture This

Simon Roberts

What About Vienna?

Steph Lay

What burns beneath

Sue Ryan

The Prisoner

Susan Bennett

The Things That Matter

Susan L. Edser

Swipe Right

susan lake

Lucy

Taurenelle Mononym

She should be walking by now

The Vinh Nguyen

The Promotion

Tom Bryan

Eevie, Ivy, Over

Tom Bryan

Hamish and the Hoolies

Virginia Miranda

Adonis

Xavier Combe

Jude

Xavier Combe

My Father’s Wedding

 

Short Memoir Prize 2025: RESULTS

April 1st, 2025 | Uncategorized | Comments Off on Short Memoir Prize 2025: RESULTS

Winners

Short-list

Long-list

 

On behalf of all of us at Fish, we congratulate the 10 winners. Their memoirs will be published in the Fish Anthology 2025. The launch will be on 16th July ’25 at the West Cork Literary Festival. The winning writers who attend will read from their memoirs. The event is open to the public.

Congratulations to those writers who made the long and short-lists. 

Thank you to Ted Simon for the time and enthusiasm that he put into selecting the winners.

 

(There were 632 entries in total)


 

 

The 10 Winners:

Ted Simon

Selected by Ted Simon, author of Jupiter´s Travels.

 

 

 

FIRST

Last Days

by James Ellis (UK)

 

SECOND

Journey Into Danger

by Claire Brown (Cork & London)

 

THIRD

Splav

by Mary Ethna Black (Belfast)

 

 

 

HONORARY MENTIONS (In no particular order.)

Mothers and Daughters

by Eve Grant (Canada)

 

 

In Between

by Dian Parker (USA)

 

 

Leaving

by James Chambers (UK)

 

 

Skin

by Anthony Dew (UK)

 

 

Exclamation

by Noelle McCarthy (New Zealand)

 

 

Africa, Once and Again

by Lance mason (USA)

 

 

My Hummingbird Heart

by Philippa groom (UK)

 

 

 

A LITTLE ABOUT THE WINNERS

James Ellis wanted to be on the pen-side of the page as soon as he saw Herge’s ‘The Crab With The Golden Claws’ on his primary school book stand. Whatever grown-up occupation created such a thing, he wanted to be part of it. Many years (and many rejection slips) later, he’s published two novels, The Wrong Story and Happy Family, a travelogue of his journey through Central America, and the children’s story, Mr Frogg Goes to Work.

 

Claire Brown writes Short Story and Memoir. She achieved Highly Commended in one of the WriteTime Competitions in 2024 for her story ‘The Disappearing Fox’. She lives with her husband. She’s a mother and grandmother. An Irish father and a Finnish mother brought her as a small child and her siblings from Ireland to live in London. Her complicated mix of life experience has equipped her with plenty of material for her future stories.

 

Mary Ethna Black is an award-winning writer and globetrotting doctor from Lambeg in Northern Ireland. ‘Splav – adventures with my family on the River Sava’ will be published by Hachette/Little, Brown/Abacus in summer 2026, edited by Anna Kelly. Set in Serbia, this memoir is about finding home in an unstable world. Illustrations are by her son Luka Tošić. Welcome to catfish, coffee, and chaos. Mary is represented by Emma Bal at Madeleine Milburn Literary, TV and Film Agency.

 

Eve Grant had an idyllic childhood in pastoral southwestern British Columbia (where nothing happens unless someone sets things in motion), which meant that from an early age Eve became a story instigator. Over time, friends and family members have come to accept that they will find reflections of themselves in her fiction and creative nonfiction. Eve is most comfortable writing about uncomfortable human experience: love and loss and our quest to find a meaningful balance between the two.

 

Dian Parker has traveled extensively in the Middle East and Europe. Her nonfiction and fiction have been published in numerous literary journals, magazines, newspapers, and nominated for a number of Pushcart Prizes and Best of the Net. She also writes about art and artists for the  Observer (N.Y.), and other arts publications, and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London. Currently she lives on the backroads of Vermont. www.dianparker.com

 

In September 2006, the author of this piece, the individual known as James Chambers rode his Triumph motorcycle around the world. From head to toe, headlight to exhaust pipe, everything about the journey could be captured in just one word – Quixotic. Two years later he returned home broke and without the bike. Had he changed, had London changed, had anything changed? For the next three months the deer in Richmond Park became his closest confidantes.

 

Anthony Dew laughs and chases away delusions (or tries to), plants trees and writes of life. Keeps a  library, a workshop full of tools and four hens. He’s been a seafarer, deadhead, postman and teacher, designer and maker of exquisite rocking-horses. Tries to be a good husband (at last), father and grandfather. After breakfast he puts aside words to work on an ageing wooden sloop in which he intends to sail away. And keep on going.

 

Noelle McCarthy lives outside Wellington, New Zealand. She is a writer and a podcast maker: she and her husband have a production company called Bird of Paradise. 

 

Born in rural California, Lance Mason has placed his work in 40+ publications; in 2024-25, he was given Silver and two Gold Solas Awards for pieces set in Wales, Spain, and the Balkans. Mason has defied death on countless occasions while living and working overseas, including “his lost years” in New Zealand, traveling the world by foot, bicycle, motorcycle, tramp steamer, plane, train, and dugout canoe. In his humble opinion, his historical/literary novels and crime thrillers await the fortunate publisher.

 

Originally from Devon, Philippa Groom lives in West Sussex with her husband and three children. Alongside full-time parenting, she writes about mothering through illness, fear, courage, hope, and love and is passionate about writing which helps others feel less alone.  She writes memoir, creative non-fiction, and poetry, and has recently started work on a screenplay.  A former Commissioning Editor in Higher Education at Oxford University Press, she has a Masters with Distinction in Eighteenth-Century Literature.

 


 

SHORT-LIST (in alphabetical order by author)

Short-list of 29 memoirs

 

Abby Ross

From Sissy to Queer

Anthony Dew

Skin

Barry Malone

The Blade Job

Caleb Dardick

Superfreak at the Full Moon Acid Party

Carrie Griffin

Devil’s Elbow

Christopher Burgess

Becoming Nothing

Claire Brown

Journey into Danger

Clementine Stott

Retrieval

Dian Parker

In-Between

Doug Bost

Paper Boy

Ian Priestley

Holding Her Breath

James Chambers

Leaving

James Ellis

Last Days

Jenny Jones

The Dividing Line

Jenny Jones

The Dividing Line

Eve Grant

Mothers and Daughters

Kate Behrens

Funny Blood

Lance Mason

Africa, Once and Again

Laura Campbell

Some Small Leak Was Sprung

Laura Kyle

The Hot Press

Letty Butler

Fragments of a Father

Mary Ann McGuigan

Beyond the Water’s Edge

Mary Ethna Black

Splav

Noelle McCarthy

Exclamation

Philippa Groom

My Hummingbird Heart

Rita Geil

The Window of Goodbye

Robert James-Robbins

Smalltown Boy

Sandra Botnen

Baby No Baby

Stephen Bridger

Help Me

 


 

 

LONG-LIST (in alphabetical order by author)

Long-list 57 of  memoirs

AUTHOR TITLE

Abby Ross

From Sissy to Queer

Anneke Bender

The Strange Legacy of a Diminutive Ghost

Anthony Dew

Skin

Barry Malone

The Blade Job

Becka White

Ms

BENSON Low

How To Turn A Boy Into A Feather

Beverly Parayno

Technicolor

BRUCE POWELL

Say Lavvy

Caitriona Kelly

Early Days

Caleb Dardick

Superfreak at the Full Moon Acid Party

Carrie Griffin

Devil’s Elbow

Chris Hickey

The Road from Lyreaoune

Christine Lacey

Florence from Flores

Christopher Burgess

Becoming Nothing

Claire Brown

Journey into Danger

Claudia Cruttwell

Swoon

Clayton Bradshaw

To the Little Girl Crying in the Snow at the

Corner of Cascade and West 24th Street

Clementine Stott

Retrieval

D.K. McCutchen

PIRATES OF PEPILLO SALCEDO: The Salty Pic

Deb Barnes

One Man’s Junk

Dian Parker

In-Between

Don LePan

Ashes

Doreena Jennings

A Mother’s Quest

Doug Bost

Paper Boy

Elizabeth Rose

I Don’t Want to Be the General

Gerry McCloskey

Drawn from Memory

Giovanna IOZZI

JUST ONE TREE.

Ian Priestley

Holding Her Breath

Indrani Ashe

Notes from the Jobcenter

Jacob Tan

La Marcha Adelante Es Tambien La Marcha Fuera

James Chambers

Leaving

James Ellis

Last Days

James Michael

Accidental Latino

Jenny Jones

The Dividing Line

Eve Grant

Mothers and Daughters

John Gallas

jumping into a Brocken spectre

John Mulligan

Gunfire in room 109

JUDITH JUDGE

The Maths Test

Kate Behrens

Funny Blood

Kate Morris

Beasts

Kate Therkelsen

Nollaig in Naas

Katie Moynagh

The Right Thing For Her

Lance Mason

Africa, Once and Again

Lance Mason

Inside the Howitzer

Laura Andrikopoulos

Africa

Laura Campbell

Some Small Leak Was Sprung

Laura Kyle

The Hot Press

Letty Butler

Fragments of a Father

Lilee Cathcart

The Queerness of Arborescent Time

Maggie Jackson

Edgeworth

Mairead Carew

Voices from Limbo

Mandy Woods

Shhhh!

Margaret Grundstein

HIM

Mark Yakich

Son of a Nun (excerpts)

Mary Ann McGuigan

Beyond the Water’s Edge

Mary Ethna Black

Splav

Matilda KIME

An Island

Michael Forester

Striking A Blow For Compassion

Molly Moylan Brown

Maternal Grandparents, 1934

Noelle McCarthy

Exclamation

patricia alea

Charcuterie – short edible stories

Patricia Angoy

A life in six boxes

Paul Marsden

Resilience

Peter Schmader

I Can Tell You Anything

Philippa Groom

My Hummingbird Heart

Rani Grennell

Memoir

Rita Geil

The Window of Goodbye

Robert James-Robbins

Smalltown Boy

Robin Shohet

Ruminations on a Jewish Identity

Rosalind Brackenbury

An Interesting Time

Rosemary Jones

The Ash

Sally Fox

All the Bright Stars

Sandra Botnen

Baby No Baby

Spaine Stephens

The Daisy Wheel

Stephen Bridger

Help Me

Susan Mannin

A Summer of Discontent

Tina Tabuteau

A MOMENT TO CHOOSE

Win Power

Bystander

 

Short Story Prize 2024/25: RESULTS

March 15th, 2025 | Uncategorized | Comments Off on Short Story Prize 2024/25: RESULTS

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. 

Sean Lusk

Judge: Sean Lusk

The 10 winners will be published in the Fish Anthology 2025. See Sean’s comments on the winning stories below.

The launch will take place during the West Cork Literary Festival, Bantry, Ireland. Festival dates are 11 – 18 July, the launch date to be confirmed.
Venue: Marino Church. The launch is a free event and all are welcome.

(There were 1,175 entries to the competition.)

 


 

First Prize:

Jay McKenzie
Fish Short Story Winner 2026

This is London, baby  by Jay McKenzie

 

 

 

Second Prize:

Robin Booth

The Making of Us  by Robin Booth

 

 

 

Third Prize:

Hannah Fluer Fitz Rankin

Top Line  by Hannah-Fleur Fitz-Rankin 

 

 

 

Honorary Mentions (no particular order):

 

Jo SteinMy Dead Mother by Jo Stein

 

 

Mohini Singh
The Only Dalit in the Village 
 by Mohini Singh

 

 

Sore Winner  by David RalphDavid Ralph

 

 

Linda ChaseKeeping Cool  by Linda Chase   

 

 

Nicola Schofield
Lonely Meets Lonely 
 by Nicola Schofield     

 

 

Barry Brophy
Entropy
  by Barry Brophy

 

 

Rand Richards Cooper
Fiasco
  by Rand Richards Cooper

 

 

 

SEAN LUSK’S COMMENTS on the ten winning stories:

Stories taking us from an Indian earthquake to a sweltering New York, and from the awkwardness of middle-aged dating to highly believable hauntings of one sort or another, the shortlisted stories all show a confidence of writing voice and originality of approach that makes them shine.

Fiasco is a beautifully realised story of a newly married young couple in 1950s New England on their honeymoon. I wanted to read on – perhaps because this felt more like an opening to a novel than a short story.

Entropy is a clever, playful story of a physics lecturer who takes an English course that prompts him to ponder all the ways in which entropy affects his life.

I really admired the way Lonely Meets Lonely used its structure to give us great sympathy for all the characters in this story of dating in late middle age, and the pressing human need to make connection. Deftly done.

I loved the voice in Keeping Cool, as a New Yorker who knows he’s being a fool tries to instal an air-conditioner in his run-down apartment with predictable (but not too predictable) results.

Sore Winner is told in the convincing voice of an unreliable narrator, whose spiky relationship with his younger brother has murky origins. We, the reader, share fully in his disturbing self-realisation.

The Only Dalit in the Village has a wonderfully timeless quality. In many ways a parable, it handles every character with touching sympathy. Perfectly paced, and admirably controlled, this is writing of great assurance.

My Dead Mother captured me completely with its whip-smart narrative voice, its wholly convincing haunting by the dead mother, its crackling humour and perfect twist. An absolute delight.

Top Line moved me, a story of two widowers, brothers-in-law, who are preparing to dance with each other at a ballroom competition, it is, appropriately enough, a masterclass in the choreography of the short story. Every touch, gesture and look is applied with the skill of a watercolourist. Beautiful.

The Making of Us is set in an English boarding school in the not-so-distant past and subtly establishes a deep sense of unease, the young narrator’s voice not fully grasping what we as a reader can understand all too well. The massed schoolboys are like a threatening army, their strange ululations adding to the gathering certainty that something terrible is going to happen. This has the quality of a classic. It is a story with a haunting quality, if not a ghost.

This is London, Baby is wholly its own thing. The writing fizzes and flames with originality, honesty and a kind of self-outrage. Here we follow the messy life of a woman from hedonistic clubbing in the nineties when she is eighteen to a sober assessment of all its highs and lows when she is in her mid-forties. It leaves us pondering all that she has not told us and, like the very best short stories, the feeling that we have been given a glimpse of a character’s true soul. The language is startling, fierce and singular. Truly outstanding.

 

BIOGRAPHIES of Winning Authors

Jay McKenzie swapped the North East coast for Greece, Indonesia, Singapore, Australia and South Korea.  Her weakness is knitwear and she lives with her husband, daughter and too many cardigans. If spotted without a cup of tea in hand, it is likely that she is sending a distress signal and the relevant authorities should be contacted with haste. How to Lose the Lottery will be published with HarperFiction in Spring 2026.

Robin Booth is a writer and editor from Stroud, Gloucestershire. He was sent to boarding school at the age of eight, in circumstances that were very different from those in his story. His work has been published by Stroud Short Stories and Ad Hoc Fiction, and his stories have received prizes at the Bath Short Story and Mairtín Crawford Awards. He is a member of the Wild Writers group in Stroud.

Hannah-Fleur is a novelist and short story writer, represented by Nicole Etherington at Blake Friedmann. Her short fiction has been published in the Bridport Anthology, a previous Fish Anthology, and Blackfriars Books. She was longlisted for the BBC Short Story Award 2022. She has an MA from Goldsmiths in Creative Writing and works at the Natural History Museum. Her first stories were about woodland animals, all ending the same way: …they went to bed, tired but happy.

Jo Stein lives on the Hudson River in Harlem, close enough to walk to the school where she teaches 8th graders how to write and a couple of blocks from City College where she got her MFA. Every now and then her husband threatens to give away books that pile up in the apartment. Stein is terrified her students will read her stories on the internet. 

MOHINI SINGH studied Computer Science at Cambridge and worked as a software engineer for eight years before deciding it was not the career for her. She took evening classes in creative writing, completing a diploma in Novel Writing from Birkbeck. She has been published in the Bridport Anthology and The Good Journal. In her free time she learns Japanese in the hope to one day be able to read Haruki Murakami.

David Ralph’s stories and essays have been published in Dublin Review, Banshee, New Irish Writing, Southword, Litro, and the Irish Independent. He won a New Irish Writing award in 2020, and his memoir piece ‘Two Bastards’ was placed third in the Fish Memoir Prize in 2022. In 2024 he was shortlisted for the Francis McManus Short Story Award, and his story ‘Turncoat’ was broadcast on RTE Radio 1. 

Linda Chase was born in New York City and currently lives in the bucolic Hudson River town of Rhinebeck, NY. Her writing career includes several books on art and a suspense novel. Excerpts from her memoir The Suicide Gene, earned her a Fellowship in Nonfiction Literature from The New York Foundation for the Arts. Fiction/Memoir! Memoir/Fiction! While teaching Creative Writing at Pace University she is trying to find enough time to write both!

Nicola Schofield is a writer from Salford.  She has written for theatre and TV, including plays for children and community projects.  She won a Bruntwood Prize at Royal Exchange Theatre in 2004 and currently teaches Playmaking at the University of Manchester.  Her mum is from Ireland and was born in a village named Hospital, County Limerick.  Nicola has no pets, and that is perhaps a failing. She lives with her family in Greater Manchester.

Barry Brophy was born and lives in Dublin where he works as an engineering and technical communication lecturer at UCD. He has been writing all his life; factually about Laurel and Hardy, sitcoms and making presentations; and fictionally in several unpublished (as yet) novels. The common factor in all of this is a fascination with dialogue, and his influences in this regard include Evelyn Waugh, Muriel Spark and Steptoe & Son.

Rand Richards Cooper lives in Connecticut and is the author of two works of fiction, The Last to Go and Big As Life. As essayist and journalist he has covered an alarming range of topics, from coed locker rooms to Botox parties, the wonders of the F-word, the search for lost WW II submarines, the origins of jerk barbecue, and the sexual politics of having your dog neutered. His memoir, “Chess With The Wehrmacht,” won the Fish Short Memoir Prize last year.

 


 

Short-list:

(alphabetical order) There are 35 stories on the short-list. 

 

AUTHOR

TITLE

Aideen Henry

Distributing space

Barry Brophy

Entropy

Bridgett Kendall

An Old Lady And A Different Ol…

Catherine Whelton

Snowmelt

Clare O’Reilly

Tea for Two

Daniel Magnowski

Satan Comes to Churston Ferrer…

David Ralph

Sore Winner

Deirdre Cartmill

Blackwater

Dylan Pritchard

Spirit Level

Elizabeth Cooke

Pretty China

Elizabeth Linklater

The Reckoning of Tristram McKe…

Fionnuala Meehan

The Red Bag

Hannah Fleur Fitz Rankin

Top Line

James Putnam

Appointments

Jay McKenzie

This is London, baby

Jo Stein

My Dead Mother

justine sweeney

Heading South

Karen Ashe

Poisoned

Lesley Bungay

The Shadow Child

Linda Chase

Keeping Cool

Lizzie Golds

Beauty Queens

Maggie Ling

Rosa Felicia

Mohini Singh

The Only Dalit in the Village

Nicola Schofield

Lonely Meets Lonely

Peter Rose

Neon Valentine

Rand Richards Cooper

Fiasco

Ray Stoute

Carnival Dawn

Robin Booth

The Making of Us

Róisín Burke

Bye Benny

Sally Bramley

Waiting for the balloons

Shanley Kearney

Hand in Hand

susan lake

That Shit, Hamlet

Susannah Waters

Brothers

Tabitha Topping

The Artist’s Wife

Thiva Narayanan

A Keralan Horror Story

 


 

Long-list:

(alphabetical order)

There are 99 stories in the long-list. 

AUTHOR

TITLE

Aideen Henry

Distributing space

Alison Froggatt

The Visitors

Allen Shadow

The Moment

Amy Ferguson

Da Capo (From the Beginning)

Andrew Laurence

A Christmas Gift

Anna Smajdor

Upload

Arthur Wright

Unique Forms of Continuity in Space

Barry Brophy

Entropy

Brendan Dempsey

The Parcel

Bridgett Kendall

An Old Lady And A Different Old Lady

Bruce Alexander

MIRACLE

Catherine Whelton

Snowmelt

CEMILE GULDAL

The Savior

Charlotte Cole

1995

Clare O’Reilly

Tea for Two

COLETTE WILLIS

This Little Tent of Blue

Cristina Alvarez Ortiz

Don’t think of Kimberli

Daniel Magnowski

Satan Comes to Churston Ferrers

David Ralph

Sore Winner

Deirdre Cartmill

Blackwater

Dylan Pritchard

Spirit Level

Eliza Mood

One Last Move

Elizabeth Cooke

Pretty China

Elizabeth Linklater

The Reckoning of Tristram McKellen

Elizabeth Nichol

Truly

Elizabeth Whyatt

Another Country

Emmy Holman

Red Squirrel and Rusty Nail

Enda Wyley

Too Far

Evan Morgan Williams

Roster

Fiona Birkbeck

Derry Girl

Fionnuala Meehan

The Red Bag

Gary Grace

THIS IS A VOLUNTARY ADMISSION

Geoff Mead

Jeux D’Amour

Gillian Metheringham

Nylon Knickers

Hal Ackerman

The One That Isn’t Moving

Hannah Fleur Fitz Rankin

Top Line

Ingrid Keenan

Smile

Itto and Mekiya Outini

The House of Dust

Jack Kennedy

Cosmos in Collapse

Jack Z

Eclipse

Jaime Gill

Mysterious Rooms

James Ellis

Last Days

James Putnam

Appointments

Jay McKenzie

This is London, baby

Jillian Laux

Reconciled

Jo Stein

My Dead Mother

John Langan

Many are Called

John Merkel

Not Even for a Song

Justine Sweeney

Heading South

Karen Ashe

Poisoned

Keelan Gallagher

I Found In Me A Gloomy Wood

Keith Johnson

The Drum and the Bell

Kevin Noel Power

A fresh Start

Kevin Noel Power

Stephen Hawking’s Dog

L.J. SEXTON

Nae use cryin’ o’er spilt milk

Lauren Alonso Miller

Clive From Kirk Ella

Lesley Bungay

The Shadow Child

Linda Chase

Keeping Cool

Lizzie Golds

Beauty Queens

Lizzie Golds

Trigger

Louise Mangos

Home is Where

Maggie Ling

Rosa Felicia

Mark de Rond

WWJD

Mary White

Downsizing

Matthew Haynes

These are Private Joys

Matthew Haynes

When Considering the Stars

Michael Button

When I Was A Doll I Had A Boy

Mohini Singh

The Only Dalit in the Village

Nathan Power

The Worries

Nicola Schofield

Lonely Meets Lonely

Ofelia Orko

A Woman of No Apartment

Paul Hammond

Night Work

Paula Harnois

Medea

Peter Rose

Neon Valentine

PJ Lemer

Victim

Rachel Ephraim

The Need in Her Eyes

Rand Richards Cooper

Fiasco

Ray Stoute

Carnival Dawn

Robin Booth

The Making of Us

Róisín Burke

Bye Benny

Ronan O’Halloran

Speak No Evil

Rosalind Minett

Caretaker

Ruth Guthrie

Intaglio

Sally Bramley

Waiting for the balloons

Seamus Scanlon

The Blue Wide Open

Seth Gannon

A Good Outcome

Shanley Kearney

Hand in Hand

Simon Roberts

Letters & Scraps

Solomon Jessie

One Minute She’s Hera

Sophie Burkham

That Was Then, This Is Now

Stefani Nellen

Twin Friendship (Ivan)

Susan Lake

That Shit, Hamlet

Susannah Waters

Brothers

Susie Goldsbrough

Thankful

Tabitha Topping

The Artist’s Wife

Thiva Narayanan

A Keralan Horror Story

Tom Kiernan

Brother Mine

Toril Cooper

Honey

Tracy Smith

The Keepers of the Words

Fish Anthology 2024 LAUNCH

June 11th, 2024 | Uncategorized | Comments Off on Fish Anthology 2024 LAUNCH

Fish Anthology 2024

Monday 15th July at 6:30
Marino (Old Methodist) Church
Bantry, West Cork, Ireland

 

 

 

Fish Anthology 2024 launchThe 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 a sample of  the talent in this book. 

 

 

We had a get together of authors and some of the Fish team in Ma Murphy’s Bar, the evening before the launch and we were back there after the launch to continue celebrating.

Email post launch from Joshua Davis
(author of short story, The Liberating Death of Freedom)

It was a pleasure to be invited back to Bantry, and to spend a vivid couple of evenings with you in Ma Murphy’s. I’ve just about finished the collection now, and it’s incredible (I thought this last time too) how you bring together such an array of voices into a panoptic, living book–alive with the details of experience. Thank you for the encouragement you’ve given me, and so many other writers. 

 

On The Fish Anthology 2024:

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, often 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)

 

MORE ABOUT THE ANTHOLOGY 

Poetry Prize 2024: Results

May 15th, 2024 | Uncategorized | Comments Off on Poetry Prize 2024: Results

 

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 made it here. There were 2,164 entries and competition was very tough.

Billy Collins

Billy Collins.

The Fish Anthology will  be launched as part of the West Cork Literary Festival, (Marino Church, Bantry, West Cork – Monday 15th July – 18.30.) All are welcome!

 

 

FIRST PRIZE:

Brooke Hetter JamesNo, I am not a Robot (An Ekphrastic Poem of Sorts) by Brooke Herter James

Read Winning Poem

 

 

SECOND PRIZE:

Mary K MelvenyWriting About the Invisible by Mary K O’Melveny

 

THIRD PRIZE:

Rosalind Brackenbury

Early Tintoretto at the Accademia by Rosalind Brackenbury

 

 

 

HONORARY MENTIONS (In no particular order): 

Toby LittA Clarification by Toby Litt

 

 

Heidi WilliamsonThis poem asks where violence begins by Heidi Williamson

 

 

Philip Rösel BakerSmall White Sphere by Philip Rösel Baker

 

 

Josh GeffinUncle Tony Fishing, Muckross Lake by Josh Geffin

 

 

Marion QuednauHearsay by Marion Quednau

 

 

Cathy ClaydenTwo Hours Before Lone Ranger by Kathy Clayden

 

 

June Wedding in the West of Ireland:
North of Connemara, East of the Ocean’s Waves by Linda Nemec Foster

 

 

 

Brooke Herter James is the author of four poetry chapbooks, a children’s picture book and a poetry/prose/photography collection. Her poems have appeared in various journals and anthologies. She lives with her husband in a small village in the green mountains of Vermont.

Mary K O’Melveny, a happily retired labor rights lawyer of Irish descent, lives with her wife near Woodstock, New York. Mary’s poetry has appeared in numerous print and on-line literary journals and anthologies. Her recent collection, Flight Patterns (Kelsay Books 2023) was nominated for the Eric Hoffer Book Award. Merging Star Hypotheses (2020), her second book, was a semi-finalist for The Washington Prize sponsored by The Word Works. Coming soon: an on-line music-themed collection from Jerry Jazz Musician. For more: http://www.marykomelvenypoet.com.

Rosalind Brackenbury is English and lives in Key West with her American husband. Her poetry has been published by Taxus Press in the UK and Hanging Loose in the US. Her latest novel, “Bone Whispers” was published in February, 2024. She was Key West’s second Poet Laureate. She likes swimming, walking and exploring new places, and is leading a writing retreat in June 2024 at the Flores Retreat Centre in north-western Spain.

Toby Litt is a writer and environmental activist. His novels include Corpsing, Ghost Story, Patience and A Writer’s Diary. His run on the comic Dead Boy Detectives is the basis for the 8-part Netflix series. Toby is Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Southampton. He is a member of English PEN and editor of the XR Writers Rebel website. When he is not writing, Toby likes sitting doing nothing.

Heidi Williamson is a poet, writing tutor, and mentor. She runs a Reading Round group for the Royal Literary Fund sharing celebrated stories and poems with library users in Norwich. She also teaches for the Poetry Society, Poetry School, The Writing Coach, and National Centre for Writing. Through the magic of Zoom, she enjoys working online with poets world-wide. Her three Bloodaxe collections are Electric Shadow, The Print Museum, and Return by Minor Road. www.heidiwilliamsonpoet.com

Philip Rösel Baker is an Anglo-German writer living with his wife, Maria, under dark night skies near a remote hamlet in East Anglia.  As well as writing, he loves table tennis and plays in a village club every Monday. Recently, he has been intrigued to notice that the practice of Zen mindfulness improves his game as well as his poetry. He performs his poems regularly at the Soapbox sessions at the Steamboat pub in Ipswich.

Josh Geffin is a folk musician and writer from Dorset, based in London. He is currently working towards a masters in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London. Josh’s often playful poems explore themes of mindfulness, memory and belonging. His poetry has been published in The Rialto, Acumen, Allegro and The Friday Poem. He won second prize in the Jack Clemo Poetry Competition 2023 and has also been commissioned to write poems for Montcalm Hotels.

Marion Quednau lives on Canada’s unruly west coast, known for its protests, parades and off-the-path hiking. Her poetry has won numerous awards and appeared in Best Canadian Poetry 2019, (ed. Rob Taylor, Biblioasis). Her recent work includes the collection, Paradise, Later Years (Caitlin, 2018), and her short fictions, Sunday Drive to Gun Club Road (Nightwood, 2021), described as both "dark" and "hilarious" She thrives on notes of juxtaposition and surprise within the daily conundrum.

Kathy Clayden was born in Cambridgeshire, and was raised ‘on the move’ in Bedfordshire, Lancashire, Lincolnshire and Sussex. Into adulthood this morphed into living in countries across the globe as is reflected in her ‘portmanteau’ career. From childhood, Kathy has written and sketched. Poetic success in the 1990s and 2000s ended when the muse took a holiday. Kathy has worked hard to reconnect with her poetic self. She lives in Oxford, does ceramics, has a partner of 46 years.

Linda Nemec Foster lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan and was selected to serve as that city’s first Poet Laureate (2003-05). Her 12 collections of poetry include, The Blue Divide, The Lake Michigan Mermaid (2019 Michigan Notable Book), and Amber Necklace from Gdansk. Her book of flash fiction, Bone Country, was recently published. Foster has been honored with numerous awards including first prize in the 2023 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Contest sponsored by The Poetry Center (USA).

 


 

 

SHORT-LIST in alphabetical order. (57 poems. Total entry was 2,164) 

NAME

TITLE

 

 

Alinda Wasner

Little Did I Know of Birds and grasses

Andrew Murphy

The Why About That

Brett Ashley

Nocturne Mashup

brooke james

No, I Am Not a Robot

Christopher Watson

Eternity on Dean Street

Christopher Watson

Museo del Oro

Dena Fakhro

Not long after the Baghdad Café

Derval Walsh

Unsmiling

Di Slaney

Curse of the Orchard House

Di Slaney

Moat

Di Slaney

Finished knitting

Elise Ball

Daffodils

Gary V. Powell

Schwinn

Heidi Williamson

This poem asks where violence begins

Heidi Williamson

Wordle as fugue state

Ingrid Anderson

Repetitive motion

James Kelly

Mabeliss Takes Your Order

James Kelly

Finders Keepers

James Lowell

Boy in the Well

James Lowell

The Irish Lumper

Jed Myers

Spirit Letter to Norman

Jon Escher

The Third Floor

Josh Geffin

Uncle Tony Fishing, Muckross Lake

Judith Allnatt

Bubbles

Julian Wakeling

A Reprieve

Karina Holm

Birthday cake

karla k morton

Something

Kate Teves

The Fool

Kathy Clayden

Two Hours Before Lone Ranger

Kegan Swyers

Rejoice!

Lana Holman

Moment Interrupted

Lana Holman

Disappointed Angel

Linda Nemec Foster

June Wedding

Liz Kendall

A matter of trees and time

Lori Jakiela

One Day When He Was Dying

Marion Quednau

Hearsay

Martin Clayton

Insomnia

Martyn Golding

Very Sick

Mary O’Melveny

Writing About the Invisible

Olga Balaeva

A Date with Connemara

Patricia Osborne

The night carer

Patricia Sheppard

Sequelae

Philip Rösel Baker

Small White Sphere

Rekha Mehra

Shortchanging the Next Occupants

Rita Geil

Lyons Creek Trail

Róisín Ní Neachtain

I see you knew my small betray…

Rosalind Brackenbury

Early Tintoretto at the Accademia

Sabrina Wolfe

When I went back, nothing was the same

Sally Furneaux

Lost Song

Scott Dorsch

Your Eyes Were Fists and They Were Reaching

Simon Petty

Packing

Sinead McClure

Before, during and after my husband’s death, the birds came

stacey forbes

When West Virginia speaks its …

Stephanie Feeney

Pink Load

Steve Xerri

housefly metaphysics

Susanna Lang

A Clattering of Jackdaws

Tania Dain

Red Witch

Toby Litt

A Clarification

 


 

 

LONG-LIST in alphabetical order. ( 254 poems. Total entry was 2,164)

NAME

TITLE

 

 

Alan Coombe

The rigging shop

Alexandra Tyndale

Traces

Alinda Wasner

Little Did I Know of Birds and grasses

Alison Gorman

Cherry

Alison Powell

“This House Does Not Exist”

Allen Shadow

I Crossed You

Allie Wilson

Last Rites

Andrew Murphy

The Why About That

Andy Price

Larghetto

Angela Costi

A Revised History of the Balcony

Angela McCabe

Washingbay Lough Neagh

Anjanette Delgado

Sunset Therapy

Ann VanVolkenburgh Chang

Today At Running Club

Ann VanVolkenburgh Chang

This Is Just A Honey Do List

Anne Berkeley

Daphne

Anne Gerard

Insomnia Nocturne

Anne Gleeson

The Carer

Anthony Costello

Why Lee Brown Left

Attracta Fahy

1. Scythe

Avril Erskine

Barfly

Barbara Ford

Starbucks

Bill Richardson

Fact Fiction August 28 2017

Billy Fenton

Raven

Brett Ashley

Nocturne Mashup

brooke james

No, I Am Not a Robot

Bruce Meyer

Slippers

C. Mikal Oness

Take a Letter

Celia Chavez

The Borderlands

Charles Jennings

Nostalgia Is So Yesterday

Charles Jennings

Recurring Dream

Christopher Genzardi

Do Overs

Christopher North

Faint Echo of Myriad People Misremembered
from the Bhavagad Gita

Christopher Watson

Eternity on Dean Street

Christopher Watson

Museo del Oro

Christopher Watson

Salinas

Christopher Watson

Smoke Tree

Clare O’Reilly

Life Saver

Clare O’Reilly

Aobh

Colleen Newquist

Sunday Dinner

Damen O’Brien

Cement

Damen O’Brien

Heart in a Box

Damen O’Brien

Alarm

Deirdre Anne Hines

Gloria

Deirdre Anne Hines

Bigfoot

Deirdre Anne Hines

American Relatives

Deirdre Anne Hines

What The Raccoon Told Me

Deirdre Anne Hines

If you want to know the future look at the past

deirdre devally

Toes to The Daisies

deirdre devally

The Head Gardener Walks the Avenues, Glasnevin Cemetery

Dena Fakhro

Not long after the Baghdad Café

Derval Walsh

Unsmiling

Di Slaney

Curse of the Orchard House

Di Slaney

Moat

Di Slaney

Finished knitting

Dila Toplusoy Gunay

‘Anthropo–’ (human) + ‘–cene’ (new)

Donald Wildman

Night

Elisabeth Lorentzsen

Sexy Saturday

Elisabeth Lorentzsen

Printed Piece of Punditry

Elisabeth Murawski

Grounded

Elise Ball

Daffodils

Emma Wells

Lettered

EUGENE O’HARE

Things She Told The End of Life Nurse

EUGENE O’HARE

Eating a peach After Midnight

Faye Stevenson

Tinkle, Tinkle, Brittle Stars

Fiona Bennett

The Reset

Fiona Shillito

I said let’s be lovers

Frances Gapper

Tanked

Gary V. Powell

Schwinn

George Drew

Light Falls at a Murderous Angle

Geraldine Clarkson

Loophole

Geraldine Clarkson

A wind comes up from Coleridge

Gerda Stevenson

Wintering Bees

Gerda Stevenson

Coffined

Gerda Stevenson

Red Umbrella

Gerda Stevenson

One Word

Gerda Stevenson

Getting to Know You in Stoke

Gillian Dawson

On the Iona Ferry

Gloria Gonsalves

In The World of Censoring Words, the Chickens Will do

Gwynne Sawtelle

More Than One Way To Be A Bird

Hannah Morphet

Old friend

Heidi Williamson

This poem asks where violence begins

Heidi Williamson

Wordle as fugue state

Helen Arthur

My garden’s a picture

Hugh Dunkerley

Shaving My Father

Ingrid Anderson

Repetitive motion

James Kelly

Mabeliss Takes Your Order

James Kelly

Finders Keepers

James Lowell

Boy in the Well

James Lowell

The Irish Lumper

James Lowell

All Aboard

James Lowell

Clotheslines

James Lowell

The Coping Stone

James Lowell

The Last Eunuch of China

James Lowell

The Last Pencil

James Lowell

The Millpond

James Lowell

The Pheasant King

Jane Newberry

Shepherd’s Hey

Jed Myers

Spirit Letter to Norman

Jed Myers

Persistence Theory

Jed Myers

Can’t Be Far

Jed Myers

Refugee Bandit Birthday Rag

Jed Myers

In a Growling Wind

Jennifer Dunlop

A Song Inside

Jennifer Dunlop

Grace

Jenny Pollak

Things fall down

Jeremiah Ward

Cult

Jessamyn Fairfield

The Apartment

Jet McDonald

The thing about hitchhiking back from Amsterdam

John Paul Caponigro

Everyone In Your Dream Is You

Jon Escher

The Third Floor

Jonas Tschugguel

Lit Match

Josh Geffin

Uncle Tony Fishing, Muckross Lake

Josh Geffin

Heatwave In North London

Josh Geffin

Happening Upon Laurence Olivier (1907-1989)

Josh Geffin

Pens Down

Josh Geffin

Kin

Joyce Victor

Tick and Me

Judith Allnatt

Bubbles

Judith Allnatt

The Old Woman looks through a Rectangle

Judith Wozniak

Going to the Dogs

Judy Luttrell

Hopscotch

Julian Wakeling

A Reprieve

Julie Sumner

If You Teach a Man to Fish

Julio Trujillo

This Lime

Karen Tobias-Green

This House

Karina Holm

Birthday cake

karla k morton

Something

karla k morton

Riding the Line

Kat Glaser

Elaine’s POV

Kate Teves

The Fool

Katherine Hahn Falk

Wasted Time

Katherine Hahn Falk

Suppose

Kathy Clayden

Two Hours Before Lone Ranger

Katrina Moinet

Premature Procrastination

Kegan Swyers

Rejoice!

Kelley Pujol

Black shoes, green pants

Kelly Quinn Anderson

I’m Looking For Half of My Face

kerri cripps

When war breaks out in your kitchen

Kevin MacAlan

Comeragh, 1921

Kim Jensen

Breath Holding Contest

Kristen Mears

Daughters

Kurt Luchs

The Sign of Odysseus

Kurt Luchs

Seasonal

Lana Holman

Moment Interrupted

Lana Holman

Disappointed Angel

Laurie Holding

Bicycle Tricks

Layla O’Mara

the medicine grows close to the source of the illness

Lesley Sherwood

On the Street Where They Live

Linda Nemec Foster

June Wedding

Lisa Smith

Vintage

Liz Byrne

Boy of rain

Liz Kendall

A matter of trees and time

Liz Kendall

The Sutton Hoo hoard has been Temporarily Moved

Liz Kerr

Waving the Runner Home

Lollie Butler

A GHAZAL FOR THE LAST SHOW

Lori Grapes

Let’s Go Fishing

Lori Jakiela

One Day When He Was Dying

Lori Jakiela

After a Pitcher of Beer at Antlers Pub I Believed I was Brave

Lori Jakiela

The Lady in 38C

Lori Jakiela

The View During Takeoff

Lou Lesovitch

Christina

Louise DiLenge

Shattered Glass

Luz Leyden

TWISTED

Lynnda Wardle

Sailing on 31 Mile Lake, Quebec

Maggie Jackson

The in-between

Malcolm Povey

Too Late for Sorry

Malcolm Povey

Lessons

Malissa Priebe

the chickens dance

Mandy Pannett

Fugitives

Mandy Pannett

A Fourteenth Way of Looking

Marion Quednau

Hearsay

Mark de Rond

The Sickness

Martin Clayton

Insomnia

Martyn Golding

Very Sick

mary mulholland

Parents gaze at spaceboy

Mary Ruth Wallen

Coming Home

Mary Ruth Wallen

Saccade, Solitude, or My Own Philosophy of Time and Space

Mary O’Melveny

Writing About the Invisible

Matt Hohner

Dispatch from the Artist Residency

Matthew Zhao

We Are All Named After Someone

Mel Konner

Grand Canyon Dawn

Michael Swan

Names

Miriam O’Meara

Life Has Three Arrivals

Miriam O’Meara

It is Easier to be a Monk

Mran-Maree Laing

Bird. Sea. World.

Nicholas Hogg

The Blind Photographer

Nicolette Daskalakis

Landscape with Burning Car

Ninette Hartley

My Mother’s Sewing Box

Noelene Nash

Mealwords

Ockert Greeff

Speed Trap

Olga Balaeva

A Date with Connemara

Olga Balaeva

A Date with Connemara

owen lewis

My Partisan Grief

Paige Sandgren

White

Patricia Millner

Between Worlds

Patricia Osborne

The night carer

Patricia Osborne

The night carer

Patricia Osborne

The White Horse

Patricia Sheppard

Sequelae

Peter Archer

House Party

Philip Rösel Baker

Small White Sphere

Regina O’Melveny

AWAKE

Rekha Mehra

Shortchanging the Next Occupants

Renee Sgroi

each day i drive the edge of my own omphalos

Rhonda Collis

Dam

Rhonda Collis

Locket

Rita Geil

Lyons Creek Trail

Rita Geil

Lyons Creek Trail

Rita Geil

Party of One

Rob Phillips

TIMEWORN

Rob Phillips

Blackbird in Lorcan Blue

Roberta Beary

From that Moment in the Garden…

Rodney Aldrich

A Field Plowed Late

Roger Camp

A Model of Abstraction

Roger Camp

Pinched in the Metro

Róisín Leggett Bohan

anticipation of anaphylaxis

Róisín Leggett Bohan

Letter to a Lifeguard

Róisín Ní Neachtain

I see you knew my small betray…

Rosalind Brackenbury

Early Tintoretto at the Accademia

Sabrina Wolfe

When I went back, nothing was the same

Sally Furneaux

Lost Song

Sandeep Kumar Mishra

Immigration- A Tree Without Roots

Sarah Blizzard Robinson

Building Bridges in the Air

Sarah Davies

Flight from Bristol to Cork

Sarah Reader Harris

The Power of Flowers

Scott Dorsch

Your Eyes Were Fists and They Were Reaching

Scott Dorsch

Vanishings

Scott Dorsch

How Close We Are in the Blue Hour

Shoshanna Rockman

In sequence. In sequence. In sequence

Simon Petty

Packing

Simon Petty

The Worm Stones

Sinead McClure

Before, during and after my husband’s death, the birds came

Soledad Alfaro-Allah

DIG

stacey forbes

When West Virginia speaks its …

stacey forbes

Dream with wild rhubarb and a Mockingbird

Stephanie Feeney

Pink Load

Stephanie Feeney

A Mother Can’t Help but Eavesdrop at the Park

Stephanie Feeney

The Scene

Stephanie Feeney

Loon Song

Stephanie Saywell

In Which My Anger Introduces Herself as the next Bond Girl

Steve Xerri

housefly metaphysics

Susan Roney-O’Brien

Until Light Came

Susan Roney-O’Brien

Multiple Sclerosis

Susanna Lang

A Clattering of Jackdaws

Suzanna Fitzpatrick

Little Armoured One

Tania Dain

Red Witch

Tate Standage

honest skeletons

Toby Litt

A Clarification

V. A. Bettencourt

We Seem Like Misfits But

V. A. Bettencourt

Life Lessons from Floral Hyenas

Vasiliki Albedo

When I say I’m a firewalker I mean our bedroom’s burning

vincent Barton

Seahorse

Wayne Medford

I want to be seen naked by someone other than a trained healthcare professional

Willie Schatz

In the Georgetown Law Men’s Room

 

 

Short Story Prize 2023/24: RESULTS

April 10th, 2024 | Uncategorized | Comments Off on Short Story Prize 2023/24: RESULTS

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.

Sarah Hall

Judge, Sarah Hall

The 10 winners 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.

(There were 1,256 entries to the competition.)

 


 

First Prize:

Alison Fields, Fish Short Story 2023/24 winner

Second Sight by Alison Fields

 

 

 

Second Prize:

Eve Thomson Fish Short Story Prize winnerThe Other Life by Eve Thomson

 

 

 

Third Prize:

Continuity Error by Ewan GaultEwan Gault Fish Short Story Prize 2023/34

 

 

 

Honorary Mentions (no particular order):

 

Cath Sampson: Fish Short Story Prize 2023Cargo by Cath Sampson

 

 

Joshua Davis: Fish Short Story Prize 2023The Liberating Death of Freedom by Joshua Davis

 

 

Amanda Hildebrandt: Fish Short Story prize 2023, winner.The Nail House by Amanda Hildebrandt

 

 

Laura Kyle: Fish Short Story Prize 2023, winner.My da’s a Hero by Laura Kyle

 

 

Monica Corish: Fish Short Story Prize 2023, winner.The Púca’s Share by Monica Corish

 

 

Rowland Cooke: Fish Short Story Prize 2023, winnerPolishing The Silence by Rowland Cooke

 

 

Garret Dwyer Joyce: Fish Short Story Prize 2023, winner.Derry Blue by Garret Dwyer Joyce

 

 

 

 

Sarah Hall’s comments on the ten winning stories:

 

Winner – Second Sight

What a wonderful, fully-rounded and gripping story this is! The characterisations, landscaping and the drama are so well calibrated; it feels like a vivid, compressed, atmospheric world, with humane and dynamic personalities inside that have histories and emotional complexity. All the component parts work well together. The prose is beautiful, perfectly-gaged, tense, clean, suited to both place and character; the descriptions are both astute and evocative. It’s a very rewarding read, and it utterly transported me while reading – I forgot where I was completely! – appealing to all the senses, visually stimulating, and page-turning.  

 

Second Place – The Other Life

This is a really intelligent, coruscating, witty piece of writing that skilfully uses the very compelling and entertaining voice of its main character to explore family relationships, history, gender dynamics and the drama/art controversy set up by its premise. The story unfolds really skilfully and surprisingly. This author has a brilliant talent for narrative voice and intrigue, and an ability to create strangeness and disquiet (the operating keys of the form), and to move the reader without being sentimental.

 

Third Place – Continuity Error

A fantastic, very atmospheric tale, that is both funny and tragic. The drama is really well contained, with a sense of context around it – a hinterland – which is a sign of a writer who really understand the form of the short story, what to include, and what to allude to. I loved the use of the demotic, and the language and descriptions – the metaphors especially – are so well written. The choice of subject is unusual, marginal, and very well handled. Much admiration for this writer. 

 

Runners Up:

Cargo –   
A very well written story, with a neat community drama inside, an interesting shift of narrative perspectives, and careful handling of history.

 

The Liberating Death of Freedom –
This is a skilfully handled story, that keeps a lid on the tension and keeps a steady, suitable, almost detached tone throughout, which, by the end of the story, comes into its own and pays dividends. 

 

The Nail House – 
A super, smart, colourful and playfully linguistic tale, which is a riot to read and uses its odder qualities to brilliant ends. 

 

My da’s A Hero – 
A great attempt at a story with driving plot, using political troubles and character conflict to create a small crucible of tension, intrigue and revelation. 

 

The Puca’s Share – 
Loved the creativity and playful inventiveness of this story, which lands somewhere between adult & children’s fiction and has a real sense of folkloric verve and moral engagement to it. 

 

Polishing The Silence – 
A compelling, subversive story, that takes on disquieting subject matter, human flaws and breaking points, and walks a tricky line with them using cleverly understated prose.

 

Derry Blue – 
A melancholy, cleanly written story about trauma, the loneliness of grief, and how the aftermath of damage and loss has no neat ending.

 

 


 

Short-list:

(alphabetical order) There are 46 stories on the short-list. 

 

Alex Rourke

Amphibian

Alison Fields

Second Sight

Amanda Hildebrandt

The Nail House

Cathy Sampson

Cargo

Chloe Banks

Blighty One

Clayton Bradshaw

The Two Things Blassie Knows

Dale Marie

Shadow Companions

Dan Micklethwaite

Like Everest Maybe, or El Capitan

David Smith

Kintsugi

deirdre devally

The Inquest

Donna Brown

Suddenly, and with Flowers

Elizabeth Whyatt

Another Country

Elizabeth Whyatt

Indigo Shore

Eve Thomson

The Other Life

Ewan Gault

Continuity Error

Garret Dwyer Joyce

Derry Blue

Jay McKenzie

Hairdressing Tips for Ugly Girls

Joshua Davis

The Liberating Death of Freedom

Julian Wakeling

Greetings From LA

Justine Busto

Espejo Majico

Kyleigh Leddy

Perpetual Sunset

Laura Kyle

My da’s a Hero

Lesley Bannatyne

Coaxing Sugar From the Trees

Liam Keller

Fill Your Pockets With Stones

Liz Houchin

Fluorescent Blues

Liza Hartley

The Sound of the Pigs

Lorcan Byrne

The Egret

Maggie Ling

The Last Time I Saw Richard

Marc Joan

Golden Mummy

Mark Johnson

All Good

Martin Costello

Eddie Grouse

Matilda KIME

REST

Max Youngman

WHITE RABBITS

Monica Corish

The Púca’s Share

Natasha Hutcheson

Gill Drayton’s Plunder – a Scrapbook

Niamh Mac Cabe

The Third Beagle

Rachel Bowman

Help for Kitty Hopkins’ Nerves

Ronan Ryan

Ghoul

Rowland Cooke

Polishing the Silence

Rupert Dastur

Love, at the Deepest Point

sean coffey

Academic Affairs

Shamaine Loo

The Second Can Wait

Sheila Killian

Flight

Sofie De Smyter

Q&A

Thomas Gabrielson

NOT THAT EASY

Vincent Barton

HAPAX LEGOMENON

 

 


 

Long-list:

(alphabetical order)

There are 134 stories in the long-list. 

 

Adam Oliver

La Hora Azul

Alex Rourke

Amphibian

Alexander Cullen

Do They Know It’s Christmas?

Alice Murray

Greta

Alison Fields

Second Sight

AM Ruiz Zepeda

Leopard Seals

Amanda Garrie

Leaving the Sea

Amanda Hildebrandt

No Safe Place

Amanda Hildebrandt

The Nail House

Andrew Hanson

In Place of Ashes

Ann Landi

Three Women

Anna Linstrum

He Sits Amid His Finery

Ben James

Animal Spirits

Benedict Pignatelli

A Murder of Crows

Bill Zaget

The Enfolding Space

Cathy Sampson

Cargo

Charles Cooper

Pas Si Prêt à Porter (Not So Ready to Wear)

Chloe Banks

Blighty One

Clayton Bradshaw

The Two Things Blassie Knows

Dale Marie

Shadow Companions

Dan Micklethwaite

Like Everest Maybe, or El Capitan

Dan Winterson

About Now Sounds Right

Daniel Larbi

Board of Governors of Shepherd High School

David Smith

Kintsugi

deirdre devally

The Inquest

Dennis McNamara

By Sea By Land

Donna Brown

Suddenly, and with Flowers

Dylan Pritchard

Vergogna

Edward Fry

Best of Three

Elaine McCluskey

Father Eduardo

Elizabeth Whyatt

Another Country

Elizabeth Whyatt

Indigo Shore

emily grabham

Joy Lane

Emily Ruth Ford

See Me

Emma Penruddock

The Shape of an S

Esme Gutch

The Only Truth She Knows is Pa…

Evan Boyer

Smuggling Seminar for the Elderly and Disabled

Eve Thomson

The Other Life

Ewan Gault

Continuity Error

Feargal Ó Dubhghaill

My Quizmaster Voice

Finn Dignan

The Standstill

Frances Gapper

Mrs Foxglove

Garret Dwyer Joyce

Derry Blue

Gill Gregory

The Speck In Her Eye

Guy Mitchell

Saver Girl

Hilary Bell

Cliffs

hugh mccormack

Keep Spinning

Jack Z

Hurling

James Lee

Ed

Jane Dabate

Garbage

Jay McKenzie

Hairdressing Tips for Ugly Girls

Jennifer Bailey

A Fish Story

Jessica White

Esther

Jim O’Connor

Et in Arcadia

John Fullman

Luck…A Long Covid Weekend

Jon Stapley

No Exceptions

Joshua Davis

The Liberating Death of Freedom

Julian Wakeling

Greetings From LA

Juliet Hill

In the Doorway

Justine Busto

Espejo Majico

justine sweeney

Coins in My Fist

Katrina Moinet

Borderline Discomfort

Kate Lockwood Jefford

Dead Friend’s Coat

Kieran Marsh

BLESSED IS THE FRUIT OF YOUR WOMB

Kyleigh Leddy

Perpetual Sunset

Laura Kyle

My da’s a Hero

Lesley Bannatyne

Coaxing Sugar From the Trees

Liam Keller

Fill Your Pockets With Stones

Lindsay Gillespie

Window Dressing

Liz Houchin

Fluorescent Blues

Liza Hartley

The Sound of the Pigs

Lorcan Byrne

Rock Dove

Lorcan Byrne

Scallop Shell

Lorcan Byrne

The Egret

Louis Hall

Album Track

M.G. Eugene

Through the Waves of a Melody

Maggie Harris

Under the crab-apple tree

Maggie Ling

The Last Time I Saw Richard

Marc Joan

Golden Mummy

Marc Joan

The Law of the Little Fishes

Marc Joan

The Year That Nothing Comes

Marco Patitucci

Love Means Nothing

Marion Quednau

Pairs of Shoes

Mark de Rond

Summer in Southwark

Mark Johnson

All Good

Martin Costello

Eddie Grouse

Martin Daly

Deora Dé

Mary Black

The Thaw

Mary Black

Her Handsome Prints

Mary Shovelin

The White March

Matilda KIME

REST

Max Youngman

WHITE RABBITS

Megan Jennaway

Radio Hour

Michael Males

Acquired Daughter

Michelle Crowell

The Drama of an Unwanted Separation

Monica Corish

The Púca’s Share

nada marjanovich

The Leftovers

Natalie Southworth

The Pocket Book

Natasha Hutcheson

Gill Drayton’s Plunder – A Scrapbook

Niamh Mac Cabe

The Third Beagle

Nick Okapi

Ministry of Justification

Nikki Barrowclough

Once….

Nina Cullinane

The Fort

Oscar Maloney Hill

Peel

Patricia Mullin

Hush

Paul Bassett Davies

Fit

Paul Buchheit

Crayon Games

Penny Frances

Exposure

Penny Simpson

Until your wild world ends

Peter Hankins

Nemo Kizh – the Fight Against Beauty

Peter Rodgers

One last flirtation

Peter Rose

Illegal Aliens

Phil Cummins

Mug

Rachel Bowman

Help for Kitty Hopkins’ Nerves

Rina Soloveitchik

Her Wholeness

Robert Daseler

A Dictionary of Loneliness

Ronan Ryan

Ghoul

Ronnie Greig

The Night They Bombed Belfast

Rosey Darbishire

S.W.A.L.K

Rowland Cooke

Polishing the Silence

Rupert Dastur

Love, at the Deepest Point

S A Lunn

We’re Not Getting Divorced

Sara Roberts

Seed

sean coffey

Academic Affairs

Shamaine Loo

The Second Can Wait

Shamaine Loo

The Spider Spirits

Shannon Savvas

The Resurrection of Michalis Charalambous

Sharryn Ryan

Bespangling Every Bough

Sheila Killian

Flight

Sofie De Smyter

Q&A

Sophie James

Substitutes

Stephen Flanagan

The Roboticist

Susan Wigmore

OTHER

Tina Cameron

Reckless Redemption

Thomas Gabrielson

BLANK PAGE

Thomas Gabrielson

NOT THAT EASY

Tracey Shillito

Reunion

vincent Barton

HAPAX LEGOMENON

Will Maclean

Quantitative Easing

Ximena Escobar de Nogales

AN INFLATABLE HERO

Zandra Carrington

Maurice and Finnian

Flash Fiction Prize 2024: RESULTS

April 10th, 2024 | Uncategorized | Comments Off on 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

Fish Flash Winner 2024Messiah: 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

Fish Flash Fiction 2nd Prize 2024Starship 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

 

Fish Flash Fiction 3rd 2023Blue 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)

 

Fish Flash Fiction Prize 2023: winnerA Story in 300 Words :  by alfie lee

 

 

 

Fish Flash Fiction Prize 2023: winnerComing of Age:  by Jo Nestor

 

 

 

Fish Flash Fiction 2023: winner

THE Interrogation of Lauren Lundgren:  by Alan Falkingham

 

 

 

Fish Flash Fiction 2023: winnerPivot Point:  by Judith Brown

 

 

 

Fish Flash Fiction 2023: winnerThe Importance of Firm Upholstery: by Fionnula Simpson

 

 

 

I Follow: by Seamus Scanlon

 

 

 

Nicole Love: Fish Flash Fiction Prize 2024, winner.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 Memoir Prize 2024: RESULTS

April 1st, 2024 | Uncategorized | Comments Off on Short Memoir Prize 2024: RESULTS

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 Lusk, for the time and enthusiasm that he put into selecting the winners.

Notes from Sean on the 10 winning memoirs.

(About Sean’s latest novel.)

(There were 717 entries in total)


 

The 10 Winners:

Selected by Sean Lusk. Author of The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley

 

FIRST

Rand-Richards-Cooper

Chess with the Wehrmacht
by Rand Richards Cooper (USA)

 

SECOND

David LongstaffI Should Have held Him
by David Longstaff (UK)

 

THIRD

Daisy O'CleeBefore the Sun
by Daisy O’Clee (UK)

 

 

 

HONORARY MENTIONS (In no particular order.)

Sara Green

Train to Nowhere
by Sara Green (Australia)

 

 

Sylvia TortiThe Mortal Shift
by Sylvia Torti (USA)

 

 

Kirsti CockburnThe Lone Ranger
by Kirsty Cockburn (UK)

 

 

Arthur WrightSketches of Spain
by Arthur Wright (UK)

 

 

Gemma GreenThese Shoes
by Gemma Green  (UK)

 

 

Brian JonesAlfie Plum, The Unspoken Words
by Brian Jones (UK)

 

 

Stephen Bridger

Bubbles 
by Stephen Bridger (UK)

 

 

 

 

 

Notes from judge, Sean Lusk:

This very strong set of memoirs deliver emotional weight, combining the personal and particular with the universal. Each one is touching, though often in surprising ways: the loss of a child is a consistent theme – sometimes a child simply lost because they have left home, sometimes more searingly because a baby is lost in childbirth. Loss of parents, too, features in many of these memoirs. Significant international events – war, terrorism, and climate crisis, make their appearance, as do crumbling public services. The unifying factor is that each is described through the eyes of memory – subjective and not always wholly reliable. That the subject of memoir is so often personal trauma should not surprise us – these are so often the experiences that burn deep and which, when the time comes, we feel the need to tell.

 

Bubbles is an absorbing account of the often anarchic experience of a junior doctor working in a hospital in chaos, surrounded by larger than life characters – each going through their own intensely personal traumas.  Alfie Plum, the Unspoken Words is a tender account of a taciturn man’s wartime experiences, as imagined by a nephew who has to fill in the gaps. These Shoes is a mother’s reflections on losing a son because he has grown up and away, the process of redecorating what had been his bedroom almost a form of grief. Sketches of Spain is a gripping account of the Madrid bombing of 2004 and the public response to it, and to the government the electorate threw out when it became clear they had tried to exploit the tragedy to win an election. The Lone Ranger tells of two women seeking a man willing to be the father to the child they hope to conceive. He turns out to be not quite what he appears to be. The Mortal Shift intertwines the landscape of the Colorado desert and the search for water with one woman’s diagnosis of breast cancer. Train to Nowhere is a wonderfully written piece describing a chance encounter on a train, and a reminder that a memoir can be every bit as significant when recounting nothing more than an hour or two in a stranger’s company.

Third placed memoir Before the Sun is a moving and gripping account of dealing with a mother’s sudden death, while coping with the final stages of pregnancy. Beautifully observed, intensely honest, I felt in reading it as if I knew these people intimately. Second placed I Should have Held Him is a hugely moving account of the loss of a baby in childbirth, told from the perspective of a father who struggles to come to terms with that loss, trying desperately to be the man he wishes to be in this moment of profound heartbreak. Written with deceptive simplicity, it works on every level, and reminds us of the importance of holding each other, and of holding on. First placed Chess with the Wehrmacht is a stunning piece of writing. Set in 1987 in Mainz it describes how a young American, eager to understand the mindset of the wartime generation of Germans, slowly befriends a group of old men who play chess in the park. Week by week he gets to the heart of what is revealed to be a great self-deception – cynicism, cordial and absolute, as the memoir so precisely tells us. This is memoir as history, as travelogue, as memory, as storytelling, its observations striking at the heart of something truly important and revealing. When memoir does that for us, it does us all a great service.  

 

 

A LITTLE ABOUT THE WINNERS

 

Rand Richards Cooper is the author of two works of fiction, The Last to Go and Big As Life. As an essayist and journalist he has covered an alarming range of topics, from coed locker rooms to Indian casinos, Botox parties, the wonders of the F-word, the search for lost WW II submarines, the sexual politics of having your dog neutered, soccer and the meaning of life, the origins of jerk barbecue, and why McDonald’s should not be allowed to build on the corner of his street.  Which, by the way, is in Hartford, Connecticut. 

 

David Longstaff began writing stories two years ago. He has been shortlisted and a winner in six UK competitions. His dark humour is always present. He is an inch shorter than he was, has size 12 feet and his enlarged prostrate is currently being treated. He no longer owns a dog.

 

Daisy  O’Clee reported for local newspapers in Kent in the late 1990s. She delivered aid to Kosovan refugees in Albania and visited Brunei to interview the Gurkhas before they relocated to her home town of Folkestone. She has campaigned on behalf of cancer patients, children in the care system and people with severe mental illness. She lives in Hove with her children Mollie and Lenny, and is excited to be retraining in rebirthing breathwork.

 

Sara Green was born in the Caribbean, then taken to England by cruel parents.  Finding it too cold, she backpacked to Australia.  Her ancestors gave her the globe-trotting gene and she is busy writing their stories – a murdered great aunt, a ‘bolter’ grandmother, and an African explorer great-grandfather.  On her travels, she writes vignettes of people she meets.  Train to Nowhere is one of these.  Sara writes Creative Non-Fiction, Fiction and Memoir in the Australian bush and Sydney.

 

Sylvia Torti is an ecologist and writer. She holds a Ph.D. in biology and is the author of two novels (The Scorpion’s Tail, Curbstone Press, 2005 and Cages, Schaffner Press, 2017). Her short stories and essays have been published in numerous magazines and edited volumes. (https://sylviatorti.com/). She has just been named President of College of the Atlantic in Maine, USA, where students from across the world grapple with questions of human ecology.

 

Kirsty Cockburn lives on the South coast in the UK. She works in Communications and enjoys writing, running, swimming and cycling. Her favourite times tend to find her on a paddleboard or in a kayak having adventures with her two inspiring boys.

 

Arthur Wright. In the year 2000, after gaining a degree at Nottingham Trent University in analogue photography, Arthur relocated to Madrid, Spain along with his wife and two-year-old son. Combining photography work with English teaching and writing, he embraced the culture and language, only returning in 2017 to study an MA in Fine Art. Presently he is writing, making art, and teaching in North Norfolk, with aspirations to return one day to the land of his heart.

 

Gemma Green is an ex-Bailiff, now online tarot reader. She has a Masters in poetry from UEA and recently took up memoir in the hope of making sense of the past. She writes best from her sofa, surrounded by snacks and wrote this short memoir in secret. Now it’s getting published, she might have to tell the family what she’s been up to. Then again, she might not.

 

Brian Jones grew up in an industrial suburb of Manchester. His working life was steeped in IT, spiced with periods as  a civil servant,  sous chef, painter and decorator, photographer… In 2014 he started to write and in 2023 graduated from Chichester University with an MA in Creative Writing. He has had a number of short satirical pieces published and is currently studying philosophy and writing a novel set against the backdrop of Thatcher’s Britain. 

 

Stephen Bridger is a gastroenterologist, and part-time husband, father and writer. He has spent his life working and teaching in understaffed hospitals. If he isn’t catching up on sleep, then he likes to run and swim. He is too mean to pay for therapy. Bubbles is his first attempt at remembering.

 

 


 

SHORT-LIST (in alphabetical order. There were 717 entries in total)

Short-list of 26 memoirs

 

Afric McClinchy

Bluff

Arthur Wright

Sketches of Spain

Brian Jones

Alfie Plum, The Unspoken Words

Christine McDonough

Melancholy – Regret’s Shorter, Pimply Cousin

Daisy O’Clee

 Before the sun

Damien Ryan

Skeokhojeong

David Longstaff

I should have held him 

David McLoghlin

Extract From the Darien Gap

Ellie Rees

Memories of Joyce

Garret Dwyer Joyce

Bombs and Bullets

Gemma Green

These Shoes

Joel Bond

One Foot in Front of the Other

Julie Leoni

May All Sentient Beings Be Free From Suffering and From the Causes of Suffering

Katherine Drago

Ordinary Magic

Kirsty Cockburn

The Lone Ranger

Layla O’Mara

It Is Here That Nettles Grow

Martin Cromie

Absolved From Guilt

Michelle Brock

Walking on ice

Mike Murray

Dan the Man

Olivia Rana

The Woman at the TUI Blue Hotel

Philippa Groom

My Hummingbird Heart

Rachel Winner

Roommates

Rand Richards Cooper

Chess with the Wehrmacht 

Sara Green

Train to Nowhere

Stephen Bridger

Bubbles 

Sylvia Torti

The Mortal Shift

 

 

 

 


 

LONG-LIST (in alphabetical order. There were 717 entries)

Long-list of 79 memoirs 

 

Afric McGlinchey

Bluff

Alain Speed

Alzheimer’s

Alan Passey

Luigi and The President

Amelia Aston

Laila

Andrea Breen

Murmurings

Ann Fischer

Daddy’s Girl

Annette Corbett

The Long Goodbye

Arthur Wright

Sketches of Spain (1 and 2)

BARBARA Rouillard

Without Notice

Brian Jones

Alfie Plum – The Unspoken Words

Brian Witherden

Land of My Mother’s

C.P. Nield

The Twin Dilemma

Caroline Heffernan

The Phone Call

Carolyn Colburn

You Get What You Need

chris youle

Between the Cries

Chrissie Horton

The Private Life of Danny Bloom

Christine McDonough

Melancholy – Regret’s Shorter, Pimply Cousin

Claudia Cruttwell

Village Life

Daisy O’Clee

Before The Sun

Damian Ryan

Seokhojeong

David Hughes

Rebecca

David Longstaff

I should have held him

David McLoghlin

Darien Gap

David Ralph

May the Sun Keep Shining

Deirdre Anne Hines

My Beautiful Father -For-Get-Me-Not

Derek Perry

My Tale of Two Cities

Devon Becker

Who Will Conquer

Éanlaí P. Cronin

I Love You

Eithne O’Halloran

Kingdom of the Stars

Ellen Birrell

Deep End

Ellie Rees

Memories of Joyce

Evie Lambert

Freedom of Movement

Garret Dwyer Joyce

Bombs and Bullets

Gemma Green

These Shoes

Gina G

My Mother’s Mirror

James Garvey

Bonjour Banal

Jill Lewis

Arcs of a Life

Joel Bond

One Foot in Front of the Other

John Kaufmann

Eighty-Sixed

Judy Bridges Bridges

A Photographic Memory

Julie Leoni

May all sentient beings be free

Karen Samski

Fame and Infamy: Bridgework 87

Karin van Heerden

Goodbye

Katherine Drago

Ordinary Magic: The Spellbinding Nature of Fireflies

Kerry Beckett

Nursery Rhymes

Kirsty Cockburn

The Lone Ranger

Layla O’Mara

It Is Here That Nettles Grow

Letty Butler

The Dinosaur Museum

L J Mercer

Ding Dong

Marion Henderson

The Taste of Hate

Mark Cole

Unzipped

Martin Cromie

Absolved From Guilt

Matilda KIME

The Day Player.

Matt Taylor

Gone

Michelle Brock

Walking on Ice

Mike Murray

Dan the Man

Morgan Barbour

Teeth

Nicholas Murray

Ballymac

Noellyn Fraser

The Sailor and the Siren

Olivia Rana

To the Woman at the TUI Blue Hotel

Palli Ward

Pig-jawed

Patricia Guthrie

Mum

Philippa Groom

My Hummingbird Heart

Qingqing Cai

What I Misremember About a Dead Man

Rachel Winner

Roommates

Rand Richards Cooper

Chess With the Wehrmacht

Riba Taylor

Travelers

Robert Coles

DAKAR BY DAY

Robert James-Robbins

‘Nounou’

Sheena Wilkinson

How I Killed My Granda

Sheena Wilkinson

How Much is that Doggie in the Window

Simon Beechinor

Yesterday’s Soldiers

Stephen Bridger

Bubbles

Steve Stevenson

Metamorphosis

SYLVIA TORTI

The Mortal Shift

Toni Thomas

Lilacs

Sara Jane Green

Train to Nowhere

Troy Spence

Four Acts

Vera Hough

Refueling With Care

 

Launch of the Fish Anthology 2023

July 12th, 2023 | Uncategorized | Comments Off on Launch of the Fish Anthology 2023

Fish Anthology 2023 LaunchTuesday 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 night will be posted here shortly, plus links to the kindle and paperback editions on amazon.

 

Nineteen of the authors attended the launch and read from their work. 

Fish Publishing, Durrus, Bantry, Co. Cork, Ireland

COPYRIGHT 2016 FISH PUBLISHING