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Flash Fiction Prize 2022: Results

April 10th, 2022 | Uncategorized | Comments Off on Flash Fiction Prize 2022: Results

Winners

Short-list

Long-list

 

From all of us at Fish, Congratulations to the writers whose Flash Stories were short or long-listed, and in particular to the 10 winners.

 


 

Winners

Tracey Slaughter

Here are the 10 winning Flash Fiction Stories, as chosen by Tracey Slaughter, to be published in the FISH ANTHOLOGY 2022.

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

 


 

FIRST PLACE

The Stone Cottage:  by Partridge Boswell

Lyrical pull and enveloping atmosphere distinguished this piece from the first reading, drawing
me into its arresting sensory focus. While understated in terms of narrative action, the dramatic energies of its stonework setting sung, instilling each detail with emotional depth. Its textured, sense-rich approach to sound made its rhythmic sentences and close-range images layered, evocative and rewarding to re-read.

 

SECOND PLACE

On the Other Side of the World: by Linda Nemec Foster

What attracted me to this piece was how it utilized the dynamics of flash to vibrant structural effect, laying frames of scenic detail cleverly alongside each other to compose a lyric collage of glimpses. What struck me was its skill in capturing brief instants of foreign experience, through an enticing but contained series of images which it left to resonate compellingly.

 

THIRD PLACE

Millstone:  by Z Aaron Young

A dense, disturbing narrative-drive set this piece apart, drawing the reader ever deeper into the meshes of its drama, through to its intensely clever twist. It leads us through the turns of this darkly compelling plot through contained use of dialogue and encounter, making striking use of flash’s minimalism to deliver a honed and high-impact story.

 

 

SEVEN HONORABLE MENTIONS (In no particular order)

 

Crabwalk: by John Walshe

What I found compelling about this piece was its rhythmic energies and attention to sentence tempo and tension to evoke character. Its evocative beat and cleverly timed repetitions delivered a vivid impression of the narrator, keeping the reader ‘jumping big steps’ with its child speaker, and were also skillfully linked to the overall story arc and its dynamic core image-pattern.

 

Firelight:  by Kathryn Henion

The strength of this piece is in its lively mobilizing of setting detail in the service of storytelling. It places us in a vivid slice of landscape through crisp and evocative imagery, and involves us atmospherically in the character’s key childhood glimpse of adult life.

 

Beauty Curse:  by Seamus Scanlon

This piece stood out for its dynamic tone, making skilled use of dialogue and voice to grip the reader’s attention in its edgy narrative. It also allowed this strong vocal focus to drive an innovative form and movement, generating original narrative energy.

 

Kabul, August 2021:  by Marie Altzinger

Making use of sliding frames, this piece juxtaposed two points of view on a central crisis, effectively inhabiting different female angles and voices to political ends. It used this form powerfully but with tight control, letting the explosive off-screen drama arise through subtly selected detail.

 

Taking Revenge on Gustav Klimt:  (or The Paintbrush that isn’t a Paintbrush)  by David Lewis

Taking on an effective and tonally-alive point of view, this piece dissects a slice of artist’s model’s life with wry, cutting amusement at the sexual politics of image-making. Sharp, clever, economical and tongue-in-cheek.

 

A Mother Knows:  by Russell Reader

The economy of this piece worked powerfully to control strong emotion and to cover a long history in brief vocalized details. Spoken tension connects us effectively with character, subtly revealing a moving subtext beneath the minimal and controlled narration, approaching a heavy topic through bare contained voice.

 

While the Planet Still Remains:  by Fiona J Mackintosh

Immersive second-person narration and lyric rhythm at the sentence level were at the heart of this piece’s impact. It took on a vast and weighty subject, containing it effectively through sustained focus and a personal approach, building a clever analogy into its ending.

 


 

A LITTLE ABOUT THE WINNERS:

 

Partridge Boswell is a stay-at-home rover, father of seven, and author of the Grolier Award-winning collection Some Far Country. When not hitchhiking or freighthopping, his bindlestiff poems have recently found homes in Poetry, American Poetry Review, Poetry Ireland Review, Southword and The Moth. Co-founder of Bookstock Literary Festival, he teaches at Vallum Society for Education in Arts & Letters in Montreal and troubadours widely with the poetry/music group Los Lorcas, whose debut release Last Night in America is available on Thunder Ridge Records. Please say hello when you see him busking on Grafton Street.

 

Linda Nemec Foster is a poet and writer, currently living in Grand Rapids, Michigan (USA). She is the granddaughter of immigrants from southern Poland who settled in Cleveland, Ohio. Many of her relatives and friends still live in Poland (some of them near the Ukraine border) and she has visited them and that part of the world many times. The author of 12 collections of poetry (e.g. The Blue Divide, 2021 and The Lake Michigan Mermaid, 2018), Foster was the Inaugural Poet Laureate of Grand Rapids from 2003-2005.

 

Z. Aaron Young is an MFA candidate in the NYU Low-Residency program and considers himself a fiction writer and spare-time philosopher. His writing has appeared in various folders across his laptop and has been read by tens of people. His hobbies are extremely easy to list and he very much enjoys music. When he’s not sleeping, he can be found more or less awake.

 

J.P. Walshe lives in Malahide, Co. Dublin and works in libraries.  When not surrounded by books he can be found on the sofa trying to forget about them.  After starting but then writing nothing for eight years he’s taken up where he left off and finds it a much more productive way to spend insomnia.  He once rode a bike cab in San Diego and taught English while pretending to know grammar in Barcelona.”

 

Kathryn Henion’s fiction has appeared in over twenty journals, including Beloit Fiction Journal, Saranac Review, Natural Bridge, and Green Mountains Review. She earned a Ph.D. in English from Binghamton University, where she was editor of the biannual literary magazine Harpur Palate. Currently she serves as fiction editor for the online journal of art and literature, Anomaly, and lives, works, and writes in Ithaca, NY. www.kathrynhenion.com

 

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

 

Marie Altzinger was born in Luxembourg, and moved to Ireland at the age of six. Discouraged by a schoolteacher obsessed with the descriptive style of Gerald Manley Hopkins, Marie gave up creative writing for a quarter of a century. Thankfully she eventually saw the error of her ways, and now has two huge suitcases stuffed with PTCs (Pieces to Consider). Marie lives in Dundrum, Dublin, with her wonderful husband, fabulous daughter, and super dog. 

 

David X. Lewis has written journalism for Reuters, speeches on AIDS for WHO, and documents for a Geneva organisation that sacked him. He now focuses on creative writing from Ferney-Voltaire, France. The opening of his third (unpublished) novel was nominated for a Pushcart in 2021, when he also won the Bangor 40-word competition. In 2022 he will be published by Bath Flash Fiction and (twice) in Sticks and Stones, an Oxford anthology of “flash greats”. 

 

Fiona J. Mackintosh (www.fionajmackintosh.com) is the Scottish-American author of a flash collection, The Yet Unknowing World published by Ad Hoc Fiction. She has won the Fish, Bath, Reflex, and Flash 500 Awards, and her short stories have been listed in several cool competitions in the UK and Ireland. She lives just outside Washington D.C., but she’s thankful that her imagination can carry her across continents and time, both during lockdowns and in happier times.      

 

Russell Reader lives in Keele, England, with his husband and two sons. He won first prize in the New Writer Magazine’s Prose and Poetry Awards and has been published by Litro, InkTears, Flash, Grist, and Bath Flash Fiction. One day he would like to write a story that isn’t sad and grim.

 


 

Short-list:

(alphabetical order)

 

There are 41 flash stories in the short-list. There were 948 entries in total.

Title

First Name

Last Name

 

 

 

Kabul, August 2021

Marie  

Altzinger

The day you chipped a tooth and touched a nerve

Lesley

Bungay

Labels

Letty

Butler

Fishes I Have Known

Ric

Carter

Brez

Ava

Dan-Gur

Karma Chameleon

Anne

Eyries

Echolalia

Elizabeth

Field

On the Other Side of the World

Linda 

Nemec Foster

The Door Opens

Geoffrey

Graves

Firelight

Kathryn

Henion

Lost Treasure

Maria

Jackson

Herring

Sarah

Kartalia

Cleft by the lines of cowards

Nelum

Kaur

Blood Brothers

Jim

King

Koel

Alfie

Lee

Flash Fiction

Alfie

Lee

A Human Jellyfish Goes Missing

David

Lewis

Taking Revenge on August Klimt  
(
or The Paintbrush that isn’t a Paintbrush)

David

Lewis

A Becket Tale: 1972

Finbar

Lillis

Rocket-ship set-up guide

Kik

Lodge

While the Planet Still Remains

Fiona J

Mackintosh

“Going, Going, Gone!”

Michael

Mahoney

The Prodigal’s Brother

Patrick

McCann

A Brush with Circe

Lauren

McNamara

Never Let Me Go

Geoffrey

Mead

GHOSTS

Catherine

Neville

Posted

Brigita

Orel

A Mother Knows

Russell

Reader

Falling Woman

Hannah

Retallick

For a Time, I

Hannah

Retallick

Meltdown

Nicholas

Ruddock

Bed Time

Yvonne

Sampson

The Sister as a Fox

Shannon

Savvas

Deciduous Trees

Adrian

Scanlan

The Twins

Seamus

Scanlon

Beauty Curse

Seamus

Scanlon

The Kiss

Jo

Skinner

Coppélia Doll Variation

Michaela

Tamma

The Proposal, Lyme Regis, 1936

Ken

Wilson

Satellite of love

Alison

Woodhouse

Millstone

Z. Aaron

Young

 

 


 

Long-list 

(alphabetical order)

There are 72 flash stories in the long-list. There were 948 entries in total.

 

Title

First Name

Last Name

 

 

 

Kabul, August 2021

Marie

Altzinger

SISTERS

Carrie

Beckwith

The Stone Cottage

Partridge

Boswell

A Cry Beneath The Leaves

Michael P

Bowles

White is the Color of Decay

Matthew

Brandon

Things I Would Do if I Was a Disgraced Soviet
Scientist, Living in Exile on the Riviera

Kati

Bumbera

The day you chipped a tooth and touched a nerve

Lesley

Bungay

Labels

Letty

Butler

Fishes I Have Known

Ric

Carter

All That Remains

Charlene

Cason

Man Up

Yvonne

Clarke

Brez

Ava

Dan-Gur

Trying to Write a Haiku

Rosamund

Davies

Driving Home

Christina

Eagles

On taking Macy’s Kittens to the Sawmill

Henry

Edwards

Caravan

Susan

Elsley

Subject: Humanity 2022-4022

Stephen

Enciso

Mountain Air Folly

Tanya

Esnault

Karma Chameleon

Anne

Eyries

Warp Factor

Tom

Farrell

Echolalia

Elizabeth

Field

Leaving hospital with a suitcase

Nick

Fordham

On the Other Side of the World

Linda 

Nemec Foster

Burhan Now or Never

Nancy

Freund

Aliens

John

Fullerton

Keys

Laura

Geringer Bass

In the Light

Cicely

Gill

Odette at Tea-Time

Heather Lynne

Goddard

The Door Opens

Geoffrey

Graves

An Imitation

Leonie

Gregson

Last Wave

Michael

Hainsworth

Sticks and Stones

Daniel

Harwood

Turning Back Time

Hannah

Hawthorne

Firelight

Kathryn

Henion

It’s a Living

Tova

Hope-Liel

Lost Treasure

Maria

Jackson

Fishtail or Why I Can’t Recommend a Birthing Pool

Jupiter

Jones

Was this an Act of God

Roger

Jones

Herring

Sarah

Kartalia

Cleft by the lines of cowards

Nelum

Kaur

Blood Brothers

Jim

King

This Isn’t Working Anymore

Keith

Law

1-800-KARS-4-KIDS

jeffrey

lazar

Colour of Night

Roland

Leach

Koel

Alfie

Lee

Flash Fiction

Alfie

Lee

The Dragon’s Inn

Alfie

Lee

Jack

Alfie

Lee

Gilbert

Alfie

Lee

Commonwealth

Alfie

Lee

A Human Jellyfish Goes Missing

David

Lewis

Taking Revenge on August Klimt
(or The Paintbrush that isn’t a Paintbrush)

David

Lewis

A Becket Tale: 1972

Finbar

Lillis

Rocket-ship set-up guide

Kik

Lodge

Broken

Laurie

Mackie

While the Planet Still Remains

Fiona J

Mackintosh

Going, Going, Gone!

Michael

Mahoney

Suspicion

Robert

McBrearty

The Prodigal’s Brother

Patrick

McCann

Mantelpiece

Alan

McCormick

Fearing

Paul

McKeogh

A Brush with Circe

Lauren

McNamara

Never Let Me Go

Geoffrey

Mead

Nouvelle Cuisine

Geoffrey

Mead

Electric Cold

Jane

Messer

Beyond

Hailey

Millhollen

The Baptism

Alison

Milner

Cornered

Katrina

Moinet

GHOSTS

Catherine

Neville

Ed Vedder

Dominic

Nunan

How to take Prizewinning Photos

Tom

O’Brien

The Mummies of Guanajuato

Pamolu

Oldham

Versions of Him

Helen

O’Neill

Posted

Brigita

Orel

Disassociation

Carolyn

Peck

The closest I came to having sex after twelve years
of marriage to a man with anhedonia [cont.]

Kathryn

Phelan

A Mother Knows

Russell

Reader

Turkey Legs

James

Reid

Falling Woman

Hannah

Retallick

For a Time, I

Hannah

Retallick

The Fly Trap by the Window Adjacent to My House

Hannah

Retallick

Meltdown

Nicholas

Ruddock

No Future in Being a Postman

Michael

Salander

Bed Time

Yvonne

Sampson

The Sister as a Fox

Shannon

Savvas

Deciduous Trees

Adrian

Scanlan

The Twins

Seamus

Scanlon

Beauty Curse

Seamus

Scanlon

Man of Letters

Wilma

Scharrer

Cider on Your Lips

Kim

Schroeder

King Cat

Lucy

Shuttleworth

Way Out West

John

Simms

The Kiss

Jo

Skinner

Eventuality

Jonathan

Splittgerber

Underpaid

Jamie

Stacey

The Spirit of Things

Nora

Studholme

Coppélia Doll Variation

Michaela

Tamma

Some creatures trapped in ice

Hilary

Taylor

Dog Nose

Brendan

Thomas

The Movements

Cole

Tucci

Never too late

Melanie

Veenstra

Crabwalk

John

Walshe

Shedding Skin

Nicole

Watt

Savannah Animals Fun For Kids

Susan

Wigmore

The Proposal, Lyme Regis, 1936

Ken

Wilson

The electric is-ness of life

Michele

Wong

Satellite of love

Alison

Woodhouse

Snowfall

Amy

Wright

Millstone

Z. Aaron

Young

You Can Only Jump Forward

Glen

Zehr

 

Short Story Prize 2021/22, Results

March 16th, 2022 | Uncategorized | Comments Off on Short Story Prize 2021/22, Results

Winners

Short-list

Long-list

 

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

 


 

 

 

 

The Ten Winners:

Sarah Hall

Sarah Hall

Selected by Sarah Hall

The 10 winners will be published in the Fish Anthology 2022.

(There were 1,350 entries to the competition.)

     

First:
The Days  

Shannon Savas (New Zealand)

     

Second:
The Japanese Gardner

Helena Frith Powell (Sweden)
     
Third:
Among the Crows
Karen Stevens (England)
     
Repossession Geoff Lillis (Ireland)
Swim Anna Round (N Ireland)
The Gypsy Gambler DB MacInnes (Scotland)
Skyline Anna Round (N Ireland)
The Visitor Kristina Gorcheva Newberry (Russia/USA)
Still Life with Coyote Martha Catherine Brenkle (Florida, USA)
Predictions Abi Curtis (England)
     
     

A little about the winners:

 

Shannon Savas is New Zealander by birth, a nurse by profession. She divides her heart and life between Cyprus, England and New Zealand. A nomad since childhood, Shannon wonders still where she belongs and who she is. She won Reflex Fiction (2017), Cuirt New Writing Prize (2019), Flash500. Pushcart nominated. An also ran on shortlists, longlists; published online and in print. www.shannonsavvas.com/ A hobby photographer who looks for the perfection in imperfections. Instagram.com/shannonsavvas

 

Helena Frith Powell is a half Swedish, half Italian journalist and writer who has lived in Sweden, France, England, and the Middle East. Among her works are the memoir Ciao Bella (named in The Sunday Times books of the year) and Two Lipsticks and a Lover, a best-seller about finding your inner Frenchwoman. Helena recently completed a Master’s in Creative Writing at the University of Cambridge and is now working on a novel about Virginia Woolf’s relationship with the short story writer Katherine Mansfield.

 

Karen Stevens was brought up on Hayling Island in Hampshire.  After many years of meaningless employment, she found herself working in a sand quarry in Gibraltar, dodging rocks hurled by deviant monkeys and de-rusting machinery.  The experience told her it might be a good idea to start writing fiction.  She now lives back on the South Coast, having opted for a safer kind of quarrying, teaching creative writing in West Sussex.  

 

Geoff Lillis is a cybersecurity expert who had a poem published when he was fifteen. He then stopped writing for longer than he is willing to admit. His interest was rekindled while adapting to a hand injury: the need to relearn how to type freed him once more to explore creativity through the written word. He writes now about intersections of finance, technology, and people, generally with a twist, sometimes with success, and always one handed.

 

Anna Round grew up in Belfast and Glasgow, and studied English at Oxford University before moving to London. She now lives in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the North East of England, where she works in research. Her short stories have won several awards and she is currently working on a novel. When not writing she enjoys running very long distances, snowboarding, and the music of Beethoven and Bruce Springsteen.

 

DB MacInnes lives on bogland on the Isle-of-Skye. His people came there in the 1860s after being ‘cleared’ from more fertile parts to make way for sheep. It’s said there was a foot race for the best crofts and if that’s true his ancestors were no athletes. Nevertheless, as a writer he’s used to hopeless odds, so he continues to plant trees in acidic soil and when seeking consolation, reaches for his uilleann pipes.

 

Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry, A Russian-Armenian, moved to the U.S. in 1995, after having witnessed perestroika and the fall of the Iron Curtain. Writing in English, her second language, Kristina published fifty stories and received nine Pushcart nominations. She’s the winner of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction, the Tennessee Williams scholarship from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the Raz/Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction for her first collection of stories, What Isn’t Remembered, long-listed for the 2022 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize. Her debut novel, The Orchard, was published by Ballantine Books in March of 2022.

 

Martha Catherine Brenckle teaches writing at the University of Central Florida. Because her life leans towards the chaotic, before writing on her laptop she catches her thoughts on post-it notes until she has a collection. In 2000, she won the Florida United Arts Award for Poetry. Her first novel, Street Angel (2006) was a Finalist for Fence Magazine’s 2007 GLBT Novel Award. In 2019, Finishing Line Press Hard Letters and Folded Wings.

 

Abi Curtis is Prof. of Creative Writing at York St John University. She is the author of two poetry collections from Salt Modern Poets series, a climate change novel, Water & Glass (Cloud Lodge, 2017) and has written for BBC Radio 3 . She enjoys collaborating with artists, musicians and scientists and has contributed to work exploring subjects from ancient church frescoes to giant squid. She has received an Eric Gregory Award and a Somerset Maugham award. She writes on animals, motherhood and the uncanny. She lives in York with her husband and two sons. 

 

 


 

Short-list:

(alphabetical order) There are 57 stories on the short-list. (There were 1,350 entries in total).

Title

First Name

Last Name

A Retirement Plan

Edward

Barnfield

Durrencrow

Paul

Bassett Davies

The Kissing Bridge

Martin

Blayney

Death Wish

John

Brannen

Still Life with Coyote

Martha

Brenkle

Vermin, 1977

Sinclair

Buckstaff, Jr.

The Longings of Fionnoula.

Gerardine

Burke

Fade

Jonathan

Clarke

Predictions

Abi

Curtis

Stand-Off

Gerald

DiPego

Following

Gerald

DiPego

The Evil Orange Penguin

Ryan

Dunne

the heart tastes best

Judyth

Emanuel

The Japanese Gardener

Helena

Frith Powell

Folie a Deux

Richard

Hooton

I’m Not a Bad Person

Holly

Hoyt

Mutual Aid

Kimberly

Grier

Mirrored

Roger

Jefferies

Roll on the Tropical Fun

Jessica

Jones

Who by War

Maria

Kaplun

Us and Them

Ian

Lee

The Russian for Love

Sarah Line

Letellier

The Search for Slate

Jack

Lethbridge

The Laugh

Ralph

Levinson

The History of Things

Nathan

Long

The Gypsy Gambler

Duncan

MacInnes

To See Only Sky

Rory

Maizels

Acquired Daughter

Michael

Males

Prime Real Estate

Louise

Mangos

Trash at 13

Maureen

McCoy

The Elusive Taste of Xetery

Catharine

Mee

De Valera and the Armadilllo

Conor

Montague

Burma Valley

Katie

Moore

How We Got Here

Jeremy

Morton

Crow Wood

Rachel

Newsome

Last of the Cricketers

Dominic

Nunan

Mr Pilot

Feargal

Ó Dubhghaill

Odds

Nicholas

Petty

In Darien

James

Prier

The Keeper of Lost Things

James

Prier

Death, Elevation

Endria

Richardson

The Mole: A Story in 62 Sestudes

Ruth

Rosengarten

Walking The Dog

Martin

Ross

Skyline

Anna

Round

Swim

Anna

Round

The Days

Shannon

Savvas

The Fall

Henry

Shawdon

Bitter Water

Pnina

Shinebourne

Lemon

Penny

Simpson

Eva

Alan

Sincic

Smoke

Barbara

Stowe

Goose

David

Strickland

A Stranger Passes

IAN

TALLACH

Young Thief

Joe

Totten

The Captain and Mr Schinkel

Tab

Troughton

Glacial

Heidi

Williamson

No Use

Michelle

Wright

 

 


 

Long-list:

(alphabetical order)

There are 141 stories in the long-list. (There were 1,350 entries in total.)

 

Title

First Name

Last Name

     

Christmas at Castle Rock

Peter-Adrian

Altini

Red and Blue

Lucy

Apps

The speed of dark

Anne

Aylor

The Leak

Jana

Bakunina

The Moons of Mars

Vrinda

Baliga

A Retirement Plan

Edward

Barnfield

Durrencrow

Paul

Bassett Davies

Skinny Kids

Jackson

Benzinger

The Kissing Bridge

Martin

Blayney

Seven Letters

Courtney

Brach

Death Wish

John

Brannen

Still Life with Coyote

Martha

Brenkle

Half a Girl

Michelle

Brock

Vermin, 1977

Sinclair

Buckstaff, Jr.

Sweets

John

Budden

Train Spotting

Lesley

Bungay

The Longings of Fionnoula.

Gerardine

Burke

Size of a Planet

Kate

Carne

Future

Stephen

Cashmore

Uncanny As Other Bodies

Gavin

Caterina

Fade

Jonathan

Clarke

Daily Life in Ancient Rome

Julia

Clayton

Gideon’s Grave

Jude

Cook

Out Damn’d Spot

Trevor

Copp

Take Heart

Nat

Cotterill

Predictions

Abi

Curtis

Up the down stairs

Mary

de Sousa

Blue Monday

Jennifer

DeLeskie

“Stand-Off”

Gerald

DiPego

“Following”

Gerald

DiPego

The Evil Orange Penguin

Ryan

Dunne

Four Walls

Naomi

Elster

the heart tastes best

Judyth

Emanuel

With Relative Ease

Rachel

Ephraim

Look at the Rainbow

Tom

Finnigan

The Japanese Gardener

Helena

Frith Powell

Where Our Eyes Forget

Kelly

Fulk

Boxes

Yoshino

Funaki

Dead on Time

Sharif

Gemie

Colours of a Foreign Land

Stephanie

Ginger

The Visitor

Kristina

Gorcheva-Newberry

Mutual Aid

Kimberly

Grier

Sacred

Finola

Griffin

Guirnaldas de Margaritas

Thomas

Grindrod

The Heartwood is the Hardest Part

Katie

Hale

I’ve Got God on Speed Dial

Eaton

Hamilton

Come the Fox

Sean

Hannaway

Cleopatra Would’ve Liked  Dunkin Donuts

Holli

Harms

LIGHTS

JJ

Harrington

The Bow-Wow Palooza Interfaith Blessing at Temple Israel

Jacqueline P

Haskell

Camellias

Vivian

Hassan-Lambert

Women Who Wine

Emma

Hazen

The Lake

Robin Christopher

Heaney

Midway

Mahito

Henderson

Two Horsewomen of Acapulco

Malcolm

Heyhoe

Soul Cholesterol

Joseph

Hirsch

Folie a Deux

Richard

Hooton

I’m Not a Bad Person

Holly

Hoyt

Mirrored

Roger

Jefferies

Hobgoblin

Solomon

Jessie

Night Shift Pie

Kierra

Johnson

Roll on the Tropical Fun

Jessica

Jones

The Melting Pot

Dean

Just

The Two Souls of Daniel Blue

Jayne

Kaplan

Who by War

Maria

Kaplun

An Ocean Deep

Kara

King

The Sharp Princess

Bronia

Kita

Bound to Happen

Sydney

Lea

Us and Them

Ian

Lee

Why Did The Drones Stop Singing?

Becky

Leeson

Fault Line

Jordan

Leigh

Hypergraphia

Robert

Lentell

The Russian for Love

Sarah Line

Letellier

The Search for Slate

Jack

Lethbridge

The Laugh

Ralph

Levinson

Repossession

Geoff

Lillis

Emilies

Nathan

Long

The History of Things

Nathan

Long

The Gypsy Gambler

Duncan

MacInnes

To See Only Sky

Rory

Maizels

Acquired Daughter

Michael

Males

Prime Real Estate

Louise

Mangos

Beyond Mile 91

Foday

Mannah

Teach Your Daughter to Hate Herself

Tracy

Maylath

Trash at 13

Maureen

McCoy

The Elusive Taste of Xetery

Catharine

Mee

De Valera and the Armadillo

Conor

Montague

Stricken

Janet

Moore

Burma Valley

Katie

Moore

Figures in a Landscape

Anthony

Morgan

How We Got Here

Jeremy

Morton

Alice

Damien

Murphy

The Pool

Kevin

Murphy

Crow Wood

Rachel

Newsome

Last of the Cricketers

Dominic

Nunan

Mr Pilot

Feargal

Ó Dubhghaill

If you want hope you can damn well pay for it

Corrina

O’Beirne

Burnt

Denis

O’Sullivan

Penumbra

Angelina

Parrino

Odds

Nicholas

Petty

The Dinner Party

Sean

Phoenix

The Girl, the Owl, and the Sea

Dolores

Pinto

Fate

James

Prier

In Darien

James

Prier

The Keeper of Lost Things

James

Prier

Sorry For Your Loss

Clare

Reddaway

There was a small noise

Kieron

Rees

Death, Elevation

Endria

Richardson

Look at Her

Kaitlin

Roberts

The Mole: A Story in 62 Sestudes

Ruth

Rosengarten

Walking The Dog

Martin

Ross

Swim

Anna

Round

Skyline

Anna

Round

Entrenched

MARGARET

SANDS

The Days

Shannon

Savvas

The Awkward Ballad of Tarbet McQuade

James

Scoles

The Fall

Henry

Shawdon

Osteopathy

Gemma

Sheehan

Bitter Water

Pnina

Shinebourne

Lemon

Penny

Simpson

Breakers

Alan

Sincic

Eva

Alan

Sincic

The Dolls’ House

James

Skivington

Variation on the Ceremony of Innocence

Lorraine

Smith

Lice Busting

Sofi

Stambo

Among the Crows

Karen

Stevens

Smoke

Barbara

Stowe

Goose

David

Strickland

A Stranger Passes

IAN

TALLACH

Homogeneity

Ryan

Tan

Retrospective

Barbara

Tarrant

The Heart

Ruby

Todd

the adventures of cat

Ann

Tornkvist

Young Thief

Joe

Totten

The Captain and Mr Schinkel

Tab

Troughton

The Unravelling

Alice

Twemlow

A CRAVING FOR SWEETNESS

Maggie

Wadey

In the Shadow of St. Peter

John

Walshe

Sarah Sparrow : Surfer Dude

Andrew

Westgate

Indigo Shore

Elizabeth

Whyatt

Glacial

Heidi

Williamson

Slinky

Michelle

Wright

No Use

Michelle

Wright

 

Fish Anthology 2021 – Launch

July 4th, 2021 | Uncategorized | Comments Off on Fish Anthology 2021 – Launch

The launch of the Fish Anthology has been an important event at the West Cork Literary Festival since the festival’s inception. This year the festival is online, and the launch is kicking the festival off.

Date: 4th July @ 5pm GMT

To be part of the audience follow this LINK

Poetry Prize 2021 Results, Long and Short-lists

May 15th, 2021 | Uncategorized | Comments Off on Poetry Prize 2021 Results, Long and Short-lists

 

Winners

Short-list

Long-list

 


 

Winners

Here are the 10 winners, as chosen by judge Billy Collins, to be published in the Fish Anthology 2021

The Fish Anthology 2021 will  be launched as part of the West Cork Literary Festival  (July 2021), as an online event.

The 10 winning poems will be published in the FISH ANTHOLOGY 2021
1st prize: €1,000
2nd: a week in residence at Anam Cara Writer’s and Artist’s Retreat.
3rd:€200

Billy Collins

Billy Collins

 

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

Congratulations to the ten winning poets, and also to those whose poems made the short-list of 95, and to the poets who made the long-list of 390. Total entry was 2,987. 

 

More about the 10 winning poets (link)

The Ten Winners:

 

 

Selected by Billy Collins, to be published in the Fish Anthology 2021

 

FIRST                   

LETTER TO DOWSIE, FROM ROETHKE IN IRELAND by Greg Rappleye (Michigan USA)

“It’s one long stanza perfectly fits Roethke’s sustained utterance as he writes home from Ireland about his current state.  The lack of self-pity is impressive here, for this man is in the throes of depression and alcoholism, riding the ‘moron bus’ and led around by ‘four orderlies in white”.  And far from home. His joys sustain him, though, particularly music and the pub life, where he hushes ‘the fiddles and parts a cloud of pipe smoke’ before reciting a poem to the crowd.  This poem is a sensitive comic/tragic portrait of a mad genius in extremis, a stranger in a land whose own strangeness suits him.”    Billy Collins

 

SECOND

CHEMO by Matt Hohner (Baltimore, USA)

“This poem smartly and charmingly avoids the slippery slope of the maudlin that goes easily with the sub-genre of cancer poetry.  The saving grace is the friendship of the patient and her visitor and the humor they mix into the horrifying toxic effects of her treatment, including a serum ‘meant to almost kill her in order to kill/the tumor growing inside her head.’  We feel the seriousness under the joking, and the love under the horrid symptoms.  It’s a poem that keeps it cool under the immediate pressure of life and death.”    Billy Collins

 

THIRD                  

DON’T RUSH TO CLEAN HER ROOM  by Pippa Gough (Kent, England)

“I saw this poem as a corollary to Thomas’s Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.   It’s too late to rage at Death, of course, or anything else, but the speaker uses a similar imperative tone to insist that the departed’s room be left intact, preserving it for a while.  ‘Allow… the toothpaste stains to harden on the sink.’ ‘Ignore the powder-tangle of her drawer,/ the sweet half-sucked, the scattered pills.”  How such common things are made to move us!  And leave the mirror, for ‘it holds her in its silvered depths.’ As in the best elegies, grief and loss are anchored and illuminated by the common things around us.”  The speaker rages in favor of respect and reverence.”    Billy Collins

 

SEVEN HONORABLE MENTIONS 

(In no particular order)

 

THE ROWAN BERRIES OF WINTER by Phillip Crymble (New Brunswick, Canada)

 

 

 

ODE TO IGNORANCE by Michael Lavers (Canada)

 

 

 

DECEMBER SUNLIGHT by Harry Nisbet, 1919, Oil on Canvas by Alice Twemlow (Amsterdam)

 

 

 

FIRST TIME by Maureen Boyle (N. Ireland)

 

 

 

STORY OF SISTER WHOSE BROTHER LOST HIS HAND TO THE BUZZ SAW

by Victoria Walvis (Hong Kong)

 

 

SWIFT DEPARTURE by Will Ingrams (Suffolk, UK)

 

 

 

THE BREAK UP by Partridge Boswell (Vermont)

 

 

 

 


 

MORE ABOUT THE WINNERS

Greg Rappleye lives in Grand Haven, Michigan. His second collection of poems, A Path Between Houses (University of Wisconsin Press, 2000) won the Brittingham Prize in Poetry. His third collection, Figured Dark (University of Arkansas Press, 2007) was co-winner of the Arkansas Prize in Poetry was published in the Miller Williams Poetry Series. His fourth collection, Tropical Landscape with Ten Hummingbirds, was published in the fall of 2018 by Dos Madres Press. He teaches in the English Department at Hope College in Holland, Michigan.

Matt Hohner is an editor for Loch Raven Review. He once won a poetry slam in Washington State over the phone from Baltimore, Maryland. He has adapted a poem of his with composer Brechtje into lyrics for a song performed in Amsterdam. Hohner’s first collection is Thresholds and Other Poems (Apprentice House 2018). Salmon Poetry will publish his next collection in 2023. Hohner has published in six countries and four continents. He lives in Baltimore, USA.

Pippa Gough was born in England, but grew up in sub-Saharan Africa.  She enjoyed an itinerant childhood and developed extraordinary talents in being as adaptable as a chameleon but as rootless as a milk tooth.  She has had a number of careers – all of them connected to nursing and health care, about which she grows increasingly passionate.  She is currently an executive coach working mainly with health care workers and lives Kent with Nick.

Phillip Crymble is a physically disabled writer and literary scholar from Belfast. A poetry editor at The Fiddlehead, he holds a MFA from the University of Michigan and has published poems in Magma, The North, The Stinging Fly, Poetry Ireland Review, Iota, The Forward Book of Poetry, and elsewhere. In 2007 he was selected to read in Poetry Ireland’s Introductions series. In 2016, Not Even Laughter, his first book-length collection, came out with Salmon Poetry.

Michael Lavers is the author of After Earth, published by the University of Tampa Press. His poems have appeared in Ploughshares, AGNI, Southwest Review, Best New Poets 2015, and elsewhere. He has been awarded the University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor’s International Poetry Prize, the Moth Poetry Prize, and the Bridport Poetry Prize. Together with his wife, the writer and artist Claire Åkebrand, and their two children, he lives in Provo, Utah, and teaches at Brigham Young University. 

Alice Twemlow (Ph.D RCA/V&A) is a design historian and research professor at The Royal Academy of Art The Hague (KABK) and Leiden University and a professor by special appointment at University of Amsterdam. She contributes essays about all aspects of design culture to publications such as Disegno, MacGuffin and Dirty FurnitureThese range from critiques of the anti-clutter movement and toilet paper branding to readings of manifestations of post-disposal design such as plastiglomerate and space junk.

Maureen Boyle lives in Belfast where this summer she retires from teaching after thirty years – 28 of them in St Dominic’s Grammar School on the Falls Road.  She will miss the students but be glad to have more time for writing, the garden and her allotment and plans to be on some class of beach in the first week of September in celebration and because she can.

Victoria Walvis lives on Lamma, a subtropical island without llamas in Hong Kong, with one foot in Florence Italy—soon home. She’s part England, part Holland, part perfectionist tomboy. Passions are moving words small distances on paper and swimming inexpertly with a lot of splashing. She’s powered by coffee, but it won’t sponsor her. Poet of the Peel Street Poets, she’s performed for the Economist and HK International Literary Festival, and runs curious poetry workshops for anyone remotely curious.

Will Ingrams writes poetry, short stories and the occasional novel at his cottage in rural Suffolk. He has won or been shortlisted in a number of competitions over the years, and has a blog at https://willingwordwhirl.wordpress.com where more of his poems can be found. Will’s flesh and blood avatar has spent time as a forecourt attendant, a postman, a teacher, and a computer geek before turning to writing and growing vegetables.

Partridge Boswell is a stay-at-home rover, father of seven, and author of the Grolier Award-winning collection Some Far Country. When not hitchhiking or freighthopping, his bindlestiff poems have recently found homes in Poetry, Gettysburg Review, American Poetry Review, Poetry Ireland Review, Rattle and The Moth. Co-founder of Bookstock Literary Festival, he troubadours widely with the poetry/music group Los Lorcas, whose debut release Last Night in America (2021) is available on Thunder Ridge Records. Please say hello when you see him busking on Grafton Street.

 


 

The overall winning poem:

  

Letter to Dowsie, from Roethke in Ireland

 

                                -St. Brigid’s Psychiatric Hospital at Ballinasloe,

                                         County Galway, September 3, 1960

 

Driven mad by channel wrack and fresh sprats in bad oil,

sobbing on the oyster dock, at lowest tide I was

rowed to the mail boat by a barefoot Carmelite,

then lugged ashore at Cleggan and poured into the back

of a Singer sedan. I swore I’d suppress my “affect”

for a splash on our way to the bughouse,

and the good padre, having tippled with me

in those dicey island days, found nothing against the faith

in that. He meted out Kilbeggan’s every ten miles

or-so, toasting each chosen apostle, excluding the Iscariot,

but counting Matthias and Paul.  As single-pot prodigal,

I’ve found an easier, softer way: drinking cold buttermilk,

noshing stewed apples and mealy fishcakes

with the daft nuns and my attending physician,

a kindly man who is the spitball image of Barry Fitzgerald. 

Walrus-like, I’ve wallowed in the hydro baths

as in our famous days at Mercywood, and thanks

to my trans-Atlantic laurels, my benzo-calm

and affable demeanor, I’m driven to a public house

on seisiún nights aboard the moron-bus, and allowed

two stiff drinks and the recitation of a poem.

It’s grand to hush the fiddles and part a cloud of pipe smoke,

led through the tavern door by four orderlies in white,

as if I’m blind O’Carolan, stumbled home at last,

escorted by that squadroon of virtuous angels

by which minor deities are ushered into the world.

On the wall chart of temperaments, mine approaches a shaker

of dry martinis—sanguine with ice and three drops of melancholic.

Dowsie, when did you last climb a honeysuckle trellis?

When did you last scurry through an asylum greenhouse,

tripping over clay pots and hashing your knees?

I imagine you now as sea-lioness, sleek and black,

your most clever pup dropped carelessly,

left to gorge on red dulse in a midnight sea

and you, shrieking all those long tumultuous hours

atop a granite rock, eelgrass wilding beyond you in the surf.

Greg Rappleye

 


 

 

SHORT-LIST:

(Alphabetical order)

There are 95 poems on the short-list. The total entry was 2,987. 

night men rowing

Nick

Allen

To my Reader

Lucia

Altenhofen

Obits

Jayne

Benjulian

Green Parrots

Michelle

Bitting

Boxing Day

Michelle

Bitting

How Not to Kill a Chicken

Sharon

Black

When to Flip the Pancakes

Elizabeth

Boquet

The Breakup

Partridge

Boswell

My Lucky Day

Partridge

Boswell

Parting Shot

Partridge

Boswell

The Breakup (2)

Partridge

Boswell

First Time

Maureen

Boyle

Timepiece

Alan

Buckley

Yellowstone and what the bears mean

Sue

Burge

Tea Ceremony

Carol

Caffrey

Stilts

Jean

Cassidy

When I said I wouldn’t love again,
but then I tried

Toni

Chappell

THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH

John

Claxton

Flour

Brid

Connolly

This is a Confessional Poem

Alexandra

Corrin-Tachibana

They Say You Sleep 1/3 Of Your Life
In The Dark With Animals

Simon

Costello

Coaxing

Kathryn

Crowley

The Rowan Berries of Winter

Phillip

Cymble

i had my share of graves

Isabell

Dahlberg

Veronica Lake

Robert

Daseler

Notes addressed to the person who
received my ex’s heart

Sophie

Dumont

Question for a Friend at the
Edge of Passing

Simon Peter

Eggertsen

Soundtrack

Billy

Fenton

A Chair

Chris

Fitzgerald

Polaroid of a girl from Pennsylvania

Stacey

Forbes

I am unlearning

Julia

Forster

The Lord’s Work in Uganda

Gary

Geddes

What we do

E A

Gleeson

Don’t rush to clean her room

Pippa

Gough

Edward Hopper’s Soir Blue

Jennifer

Harrison

Lady of the Beasts

Lenore

Hart

Apartment in Lucca

Orla

Hennessy

Sea Change

Orla

Hennessy

There’s Something About Moonlight

Orla

Hennessy

I am Glad to be Your Daughter

Rachael

Hill

Chemo

Matt

Hohner

Questions I would ask if we ever got married

Tamsin

Hopkins

1921

Paddy

Hunter

Practicing the Saving

Christina

Hutchins

Northern California Interior

Christina

Hutchins

A Hilltop Piked in Spruce

Cory

Ingram

Swift Departure

Will

Ingrams

On an English allotment

Anthony

Kelly

Peony picker

Caire

Kieffer

Maun Sanctuary

Mel

Konner

Soundview Dawn

Mel

Konner

the song of tattie-bogle

Charlie

la Fosse

Grateful

Vanessa

Lampert

Ode to Ignorance

Michael

Lavers

Diagnosis

Stacey

Lawrence

Man with Green Gloves

Sarah

Lawson

The Convent Rose

Fidelma

Mahon

Best Wishes to the Next Bride

Susan

Manchin

Men With Guns

Seán

Martin

Cherry Brandy

Jenny

McRobert

A Marriage Come Evening

Cathy

Miller

Monday Totems

Cathy

Miller

Quantum Decoherence

Brookes

Moody

Dartmouth Square

Martin

Murphy

Operation Sophistication

Olive

Murray Power

The Colour of Water

Susan

Musgrave

The Devil’s Wife

Damen

O’Brien

INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER
McCORMICK No. 5 HAYRAKE

Thomas

O’Grady

Kia Ora

Judy

O’Kane

For Jeanne Villepreux-Power

Chloe

Orrock

The tap in grief’s kitchen

Chloe

Orrock

Cut Flowers

Trevor

Parsons

Letter to Dowsie from Roethke in Ireland

Greg

Rappleye

Desuetude

Ann

Reckling

INTO THE RED LIGHT of the great
burning in Oregon 2020

Leo

Rivers

Dusk

Robin

Schwarz

A Letter For Neruda

Robin

Schwarz

The conditions on which I will
come to your funeral

Tessa

Scott

Letters that Work

Chris

Scriven

Full Disclosure

Saudamini

Siegrist

The Leafing of Cabbage

Annette

Sisson

Night Heron Under a Crescent Moon

Kevin

Smith

On Poetry as a Motive for Murder

Harvey

Soss

Wild Thing, I Think I Love You

Harvey

Soss

Whom Should I Run to Tell?

Genevieve

Stevens

Big Earrings and a Hat

L.J.

Sysko

daphne

Cecily

Trepagnier

December Sunlight by Harry Nisbet,
1919, Oil on Canvas

Alice

Twemlow

Ultramarine

Barbara

Tyler

Story of a Sister whose Brother
Lost his Hand to the Buzz Saw

Victoria

Walvis

Sodium

Christopher

Watson

A Small Cabin

Christopher

Watson

At the Nursing Home

Leland

Whipple

Foil

Milena

Williamson

Charging

Enda

Wyley

After

Enda

Wyley

Encountering the Unicorn

Steve

Xerri

 


 

 

LONG-LIST

(Alphabetical order)

There are 394 poems on the long-list. The total entry was 2,987. 

Title

First Name

Last Name

Still Life

Edward

Adderson

Parallax

Vasiliki

Albedo

Glaucus and the apple

Esa

Aldegheri

sorry charlie

Esteban

Allard-Valdivieso

deerform

Nick

Allen

night   men   rowing

Nick

Allen

To my Reader

Lucia

Altenhofen

Imperdible (Safety Pin)

David

Alvarez

His Lemon Water Dilemma

Nitsa

Anastasiades

Self-Help

Ingrid

Andersson

In a Swedish Hanseatic Town

Ingrid

Andersson

Bowl Barrow

Lottie

Angell

Anyone could write these lines

JACOB

ARVESON

For Marilyn

Roger

Asleson

Woman, Indeterminate Age,
Has Changed Her Mind

Maxine

Backus

Cisternino, Puglia

Maxine

Backus

Lighting a candle in a strange church

Verity

Baldry

THE APARTMENT

Madhurii E.L.

Ball

In the heavy air of a once-vogueish home

Diana

Bandut

Attachment

Jill

Barker

Ageless

Helen

Bar Lev

Killers

Alex

Barr

It’s Sushi Wenesday at the upscale grocery

Ellen

Beals

Quest

Angela

Beese

You’ve got to take your love where you can get it

Angela

Beese

Airborne

Anneke

Bender

Obits

Jayne

Benjulian

Sky Fall

Jackie

Bennett

Goats

Donald

Berk

Boxing Day

Michelle

Bitting

Green Parrots

Michelle

Bitting

DIAGNOSTICS

David

Black

Victoria

Sharon

Black

Six Blankets

Sharon

Black

How Not to Kill a Chicken

Sharon

Black

If I ha my way…

Andy

Blackford

LAST KNOCKINGS

Adrian

Blackledge

Spirals

Rosalin

Blue

Brother Blue

Roger

Bonner

When to Flip the Pancakes

Elizabeth

Boquet

Release

Peter

Borchers

Infinity and beyond

Peter

Borchers

Beer and Sandwiches

Partridge

Boswell

Inheritance

Partridge

Boswell

Strike Anywhere

Partridge

Boswell

Ode to My Vocation

Partridge

Boswell

Polaris Star Trails

Partridge

Boswell

SparkNotes

Partridge

Boswell

The Return

Partridge

Boswell

The Speed of Ice

Partridge

Boswell

The Breakup

Partridge

Boswell

My Lucky Day

Partridge

Boswell

Parting Shot

Partridge

Boswell

The Breakup (2)

Partridge

Boswell

The Best Age

Charlie

Bowrey

First Time

Maureen

Boyle

Takings

Caroline

Bracken

Owwwwww Mnn

Paula

Brancato

The house in the night

Esther

Brazil

The Performance

Esther

Brazil

Faces

Esther

Brazil

TUMBLEWEED

Rory

Brennan

DRY-EYED AR GRAVESIDES

Rory

Brennan

Alice’s Return to Wonderland

Hans

Brinckmann

The Test

Robert

Brown

Timepiece

Alan

Buckley

The Invisible Woman

Alexander

Buelt

Yellowstone and what the bears mean

Sue

Burge

Munich Freiheit

Jen

Burke Anderson

That thing

Liz

Byrne

Outcry

Carol

Caffrey

Tea Ceremony

Carol

Caffrey

Stilts

Jean

Cassidy

Eve

Deborah

Catesby

Constellation

Deborah

Catesby

Gate

Deborah

Catesby

Overkill: how the fish see it

Tim

Cawkwell

Waiting in Forest Lawn

Joseph

Chamberlain

Remembering Tim at Olcott Beach

Joseph

Chamberlain

Coming Upon Cyclamen

Mary

Chantrell

When I said I wouldn’t love again, but then I tried

Toni

Chappell

Road Kill

Helen

Chinitz

Arnett Blvd

Caleb

Choate

THE UNRAVELING

John

Claxton

THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH

John

Claxton

Onlookers – poem in memory of George Floyd

Don

Colburn

Onlookers at 38th & Chicago

Don

Colburn

Changing Measure of Time

Katie

Colombus

Wardrobe

Brid

Connolly

Flour

Brid

Connolly

Postcard from Grand Anse

Alan

Coombe

Home

Alexandra

Corrin-Tachibana

Her

Alexandra

Corrin-Tachibana

This is a Confessional Poem

Alexandra

Corrin-Tachibana

Russian Roulette for Beginners

Simon

Costello

The Other Café

Tony

Costello

They Say You Sleep 1/3 Of Your Life
In The Dark With Animals

Simon

Costello

The Human Exhibit

Miriam

Craig

Well-stowed

Miriam

Craig

Gilmore Girls

Miriam

Craig

Thirteen Ways to Use a Mobile

Paul

Crichton

Mother

Elena

Croitoru

The Handbag

Barbara

Crossley

Birds

Laurie

Crowley

Coaxing

Kathryn

Crowley

The Rowan Berries of Winter

Phillip

Cymble

To Want to Kill a Mockingbird at 2 in the Morning

Brittany

Curran

i had my share of graves

Isabell

Dahlberg

Lentil Salad

Robert

Daseler

Veronica Lake

Robert

Daseler

Turn

Jenny

de Ceapog

Child’s Silk Kaftan with Tiger Stripes
(Victoria & Albert Museum)

Eilín

de Paor

The Visitor

Julian

Debreuil

King Cat

Julian

Debreuil

Religion as Government

Julian

Debreuil

Tide’s edge

Olga

Dermott-Bond

centenary

Heather

Derr-Smith

Tonito

Gary

Diamond

Village

Piaras

Dineen

another winter

Bill

Dodd

Ward song

Nuala

Doherty

The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck

Caroline

Drew

In confidence

Gavan

Duffy

The comet is gone, but here are the meteors

Heather

Duffy

Notes addressed to the person

who received my ex’s heart

Sophie

Dumont

Passer Londinius

Michael

Dunne

Question for a Friend at the Edge of Passing

Simon Peter

Eggertsen

Not any more

Lyn

Ellis

Between

Jennie

Ensor

There

Jennie

Ensor

Emissary

Charles

Evans

Antillia unfound

Dena

Fakhro

sometimes i like to

Brady

Fauth

Soundtrack

Billy

Fenton

Apple

Rachel

Ferguson

West

Cian

Ferriter

Unfinished

Cormac

Fitzgerald

A Chair

Chris

Fitzgerald

Factory

Mary

Fitzpatrick

Rockpool

Sharon

Flynn

Knot

Stacey

Forbes

Polaroid of a girl from Pennsylvania

Stacey

Forbes

Strong Men, Carrying Horses

Cy

Forrest

What I thought while crashing the car,
Boxing Day 2013

Julia

Forster

I am unlearning

Julia

Forster

I Hate You for Asking/ The Answer is Yes

Naoise

Gale

Stone fruit

Barbara

Geary Truan

By No Means Gone

Gary

Geddes

All That Rains

Gary

Geddes

The Lord’s Work in Uganda

Gary

Geddes

Free Solo

Ellen Girardeau

What we do

E A

Gleeson

October 2012

Amy

Glynn

A good suit makes a man appear trimmer,
taller and stronger

Nicolette

Golding

Don’t rush to clean her room

Pippa

Gough

Thanatos

Louise

Green

Poet Tree

Jonathan

Greenhause

At a Crossroads

Jonathan

Greenhause

Near the Opera House

Joseph

Grikis

Spilt Milk

Nancy

Gunning

Understory

Nancy

Gunning

Everywhere Inside Me

Nancy

Gunning

My Heart Was A Fragile Blue-Black Shell

Nancy

Gunning

Theology

I

Hanson

come as you are

William

Harris

Edward Hopper’s Soir Blue

Jennifer

Harrison

Borrow

Alan

Hart

Lady of the Beasts

Lenore

Hart

After Sally Mann, Thinner

Lisa

Hartz

The Voyager Spacecraft and The Golden Record

Eoin

Hegarty

Apartment in Lucca

Orla

Hennessy

Sea Change

Orla

Hennessy

There’s Something About Moonlight

Orla

Hennessy

Triptych

Petra

Hilgers

I am Glad to be Your Daughter

Rachael

Hill

From The Big Book of Cornish Postcards

Deirdre

Hines

Putty Hill

Matt

Hohner

Chemo

Matt

Hohner

Boatman, Pass By

Kathleen

Holliday

November Morning Unlike Others

Kirsty

Hollings

Mask Me

Karen

Hones

My dog is reading Nietzsche…again

Eleanor

Hooker

Questions I would ask if we ever got married

Tamsin

Hopkins

Chuang-tzu Feels the Weight of the World

Adam

Horvath

Geological Study

Diana

Howard

Hide and Seek

Susan

Hubbard

Only a Chair

Robert

Hume

1921

Haddy

Hunter

All We Could Do Was Laugh

Christina

Hutchins

String Theory

Christina

Hutchins

Practicing the Saving

Christina

Hutchins

Northern California Interior

Christina

Hutchins

At the Smithy

Cory

Ingram

A Hilltop Piked in Spruce

Cory

Ingram

Swift Departure

Will

Ingrams

The Lady of the Lake

Jenni

Jackson

Invitation

Judith

Janoo

Chow Chow

Karla

K

Directions

Eileen

Kavanagh

Dispersed

Rebecca

Keating

Bubble Mixture

Corinna

Keefe

Holy Innocents

James

Kelly

Remember The Un-barred Bones

John D.

Kelly

On an English allotment

Anthony

Kelly

Waving in Space

Vincent

Kenny

Imagination

Peter

Kent

My Psychiatrist Keeps Reminding Me
That Depression is Anger Turned Inward

Jay

Kidd

Peony picker

Claire

Kieffer

They Say We Are

Sara

Kiiru

Tongueless Nightingale

Sara

Kiiru

Death of a structuralist

Katja

Knezevic

Blue Ridge

Mel

Konner

Convalescent Summer

Mel

Konner

Kxai-Kxai Dawn

Mel

Konner

South Shore

Mel

Konner

Maun Sanctuary

Mel

Konner

Soundview Dawn

Mel

Konner

Mid-Spring

Alison

Kreiss

gabriel

Charlie

la Fosse

the song of tattie-bogle

Charlie

la Fosse

The lost ones

Mran-Maree

Laing

Belonging

Vanessa

Lampert

Grateful

Vanessa

Lampert

To My Ex Husband,

Ryan

Lannigan

Tickers

Miles

Larmour

Ode to Ignorance

Michael

Lavers

Poetry Lesson for Golfers

Joe

Lawlor

Diagnosis

Stacey

Lawrence

Suppose Princip Had Missed

Sarah

Lawson

Once in Lascaux

Sarah

Lawson

Man with Green Gloves

Sarah

Lawson

Arguing with Buddha

James

Leader

March-you are my favorite month

Gabriele

Lees

He Sees the Smaller Picture

Liz

Lefroy

Pulse

Colin

Lightbourn

Meditation man and my meditative state

jordan

lillis

Field

Sue

Lockwood

Fledgling

Priya

Logan

Appurtenant

Michael

Lyle

New Shoes For a Funeral

Michael

Lynch

Glacier Bay

Peter

Maeck

The Convent Rose

Fidelma

Mahon

Burning Trees

Dave

Mahony

Framing that Circle

Dave

Mahony

Best Wishes to the Next Bride

Susan

Manchin

Lesson

Luigi

Marchini

Men With Guns

Seán

Martin

Shannon Diving

Paul

McCarrick

Waiting for the snow

Penny

McCarthy

Blue Brindle

Kathleen

McCracken

Yesterday’s Bar

Kathleen

McCracken

Wings

alison

mccrossan

Break This

Scott

McDaniel

A Prayer for the Solitary

Meghan

McNamara

Cusp

Kate

McQuade

Breathe

Jenny

McRobert

Finding Cenotes

Jenny

McRobert

Sailing the high seas with my brother

Jenny

McRobert

Cherry Brandy

Jenny

McRobert

Mosquito Net for Rwanda

Isabella

Mead

For Fuck’s Sake

Fiona

Meehan

Of Wolves

Becca

Menshen

‘Miscarriage’

Dante

Micheaux

faith

Cathy

Miller

Last Codicella

Cathy

Miller

Before Dawn

Cathy

Miller

Monday Totems

Cathy

Miller

A Marriage Come Evening

Cathy

Miller

Witness at Olallie Creek

Tamara

Moan

Quantum Decoherence

Brookes

Moody

The Clemency of Old Kings

Darren

Morris

Late ’80s, mid-afternoon in June

Cassandra

Moss

Strangers Again

Mary

Mulholland

they say its glamorous to have
french grandchildren

Mary

Mulholland

Fish and Bicycle

James

Murphy

Wood shed

M

Murphy

Dartmouth Square

Martin

Murphy

Day of Days

Olive

Murray Power

Operation Sophistication

Olive

Murray Power

The Broker

Tegan

Murrell

The Colour of Water

Susan

Musgrave

White Heritage
(A Blasphemy in the key of lHell)

Iain

Napier

Papa’s Aftershave

Jordan

Nishkian

Ode to my Envy

Damen

O’Brien

The Longest Wave

Damen

O’Brien

The Beasts

Damen

O’Brien

The Devil’s Wife

Damen

O’Brien

Saturday Night

Kathleen

O’Brien

INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER
McCORMICK No. 5 HAYRAKE

Thomas

O’Grady

Kia Ora

Judy

O’Kane

My father came to me last night

Denis

O’Sullivan

The Only Poem I’ll Ever Write About
My Father’s Dementia

Jon

Olseth

Home, Where I Am Not

Nicole

Olweean

Forgiveness

Rena

Ong

Edale

Madeleine

Orange

To My Step Daughter (Nattfjärilar)

Madeleine

Orange

The stones

Chloe

Orrock

For Jeanne Villepreux-Power

Chloe

Orrock

The tap in grief’s kitchen

Chloe

Orrock

The Bicycles

Fran

Palumbo

Cut Flowers

Trevor

Parsons

Incapacitating the Agent

Ann

Pelletier-Topping

Gecko

Jill

Penny

Fusion

Fiona

Perry

The Window

Michael

Phillips

The Shell Game

Michael

Phillips

La Anjana

Benjamin

Radcliffe

Self-flagellation and the Falls

PETER

RAMM

Letter to Dowsie from Roethke in Ireland

Greg

Rappleye

Desuetude

Ann

Reckling

When we were still mistaking me for female

Arien

Reed

The Yellow House

Jennifer

Reid

Exit

Joan

Renino

After Jim Beam

Elisabeth

Ribbans

Ribbon Gum

Sarah

Rice

The Binman Knows this Early Ebb

Bill

Richardson

INTO THE RED LIGHT of the great
burning in Oregon 2020

Leo

Rivers

John the Baptist

Everett

Roberts

Summer Festival

Bruce

Sarbit

Tick Tock

Janice

Schantz

Book of A Thousand Regrets: The First Three

Nancy

Schoenberger

Dusk

Robin

Schwarz

A Letter For Neruda

Robin

Schwarz

The conditions on which I will come to your funeral

Tessa

Scott

Letters that Work

Chris

Scriven

El Malpais

Lindsay

Sears

body singing

Renée

Sgroi

Suitcase

Penny

Sharman

littlewomen#figmentsof

Penny

Sharman

Lost in Translocation

Quentin

Shaw

Reminiscence Bump

Quentin

Shaw

Hook and eye

Susan

Shepherd

Missed Calls

Christopher

Shipman

To My Mind

Laura

Shore

Full Disclosure

Saudamini

Siegrist

Ode to Retirement

Annette

Sisson

The Leafing of Cabbage

Annette

Sisson

The Incomplete Poems of Archer Baldwin

Samuel

Smith

Night Heron Under a Crescent Moon

Kevin

Smith

His Name was Yitzhak

Harvey

Soss

Incidents and Accidents in
Pursuit of a Manifest Destiny

Harvey

Soss

On Poetry as a Motive for Murder

Harvey

Soss

Wild Thing, I Think I Love You

Harvey

Soss

Smoking in Greece

Luke

Soucy

Haiku Calendar

Rachel

Spence

Peace Pilgrim

Kathleen

Spivack

Google Maps

Joel

Stein

Whom Should I Run to Tell?

Genevieve

Stevens

Premeditated Happiness

Sarah

Stickney

Only Now, Black Snake

Jasper

Swann

Ship’s Clock

Jasper

Swann

Thistle on Mars

Jasper

Swann

Date and Walnut

Jasper

Swann

Naked

Tigi

Syme

The Mall

L.J.

Sysko

Big Earrings and a Hat

L.J.

Sysko

Thanksgiving Prayer

Adam

Tamashasky

My Crow

Mary

Tate

For Eyeing My Scars

Mary

Tate

Portrait of My Anxiety As An Imp

Rosamund

Taylor

Dharma without Dogma

Jane

Thomas

daphne

Cecily

Trepagnier

December Sunlight by Harry Nisbet,
1919, Oil on Canvas

Alice

Twemlow

Ultramarine

Barbara

Tyler

Meltdown

Mukta

Vasudeva

Stolen Jasmine

Roger

Vickery

ON THE OCCASION OF MY FATHER’S
ONE HUNDREDTH BIRTHDAY

Maggie

Wadey

On Coming Back to Earth

Lucy

Wadham

So I’m In The Car

Lucy

Wadham

Clay Pipes

Fiona Ritchie

Walker

Nothing Special

Lindsay

Waller-Wilkinson

The Parkinson’s Enigma

Rob

Wallis

Milawa Church

Rob

Wallis

Story of a Sister whose Brother
Lost his Hand to the Buzz Saw

Victoria

Walvis

ON THE WAY

Tony

Ward

Freedom

Angela

Washington

Sodium

Christopher

Watson

A Small Cabin

Christopher

Watson

James Joyce singing, with guitar

Richard

Westley

At the Nursing Home

Leland

Whipple

In the Soft Still-Falling Snow

Alice

White

The Covid Alphabet

Elizabeth

Whyatt

Tea for Four (with a nod to John Betjeman)

Fiona

Wild

Cuthbert and the Seals

John

Williams

Magritte in Hartlepool

John

Williams

Foil

Milena

Williamson

Noah’s Daughter

Jay

Wilson

In a field, outside Princeton, New Jersey

Martha

Wingfield

The Art of Dying – a triptych

Pat

Winslow

Extraction

Pat

Winslow

Dynasty

Amaury

Wonderling

Charging

Enda

Wyley

After

Enda

Wyley

Encountering the Unicorn

Steve

Xerri

Two Odes & An Elegy

Jeanne

Yeasting

Picture Never Taken

Sharon

Yencharis

 

Flash Fiction Prize 2021: Results, Short & Long-lists

April 10th, 2021 | Uncategorized | Comments Off on Flash Fiction Prize 2021: Results, Short & Long-lists

Winners

Short-list

Long-list

 

From all of us at Fish, Congratulations to the writers whose Flash Stories were short or long-listed, and to the 10 winners.


 

Winners

Kathy Fish - judge of the Flash Fiction Prize 2021

Here are the 10 winning Flash Fiction Stories, as chosen by Kathy Fish, to be published in the
FISH ANTHOLOGY 2021.

Comments on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd flash stories are from Kathy Fish, who we sincerely thank for her time and expertise. 

 


 

FIRST PLACE

Both On and Off   by Jack Barker-Clark (Yorkshire, UK)

¨I love the inventiveness of the storytelling in this piece. The repetition and the sentence fragments create a strong rhythm, like a drum beat or heartbeat. I admire what a large expanse of story is conveyed in this way, how much we know of this life by the time we get to the end. This is due to the powerful use of specific details all throughout. It’s moving and vivid and so emotionally resonant. A masterful piece of flash fiction.¨ – Kathy Fish

 

SECOND PLACE


Cataracts and Dogberries   
by Shey Marque (Australia)

¨I really appreciate the humor woven through this story and how it leavens the sadness. This story is beautifully written and deftly sidesteps sentimentality. The misspoken bits create compelling layers of meaning to the point where I wondered if they truly were misspoken. This writer leaves room for that wonder, lending complexity to the piece.¨ 

– Kathy Fish

 

THIRD PLACE

Ouija   by Alexandra Blogier (Massachusetts, USA.)

¨This story demonstrates effective use of nuance and subtext to very economically create a story with layered meaning and emotional resonance. This writer trusts in the reader’s empathy and intelligence. I love the use of the imperative here as well. The last two lines give a palpable sense of hope. Really lovely.¨ – Kathy Fish

 

 

SEVEN HONORABLE MENTIONS (In no particular order)

 

Lion   by Kirsty Seymour-Ure (Le Marche, Italy.)

 

 


Desert   
by Roland Leach (Perth, Australia)

 

 

Top Ten Reasons Why Pied-Noirs
are Good at Packing Suitcases   
by Laurence Gea (Cork, Ireland)

 

The Day Amy Kinona Became Invisible   by Sharma Taylor.  (Jamaica)

 

 

 

Skeleton in the Cupboard   by Katherine Powlett (Norfolk, UK)

 

 


What My Parents Were Wearing
When She Decided Not to Keep Me   
by Shoshauna Shy (USA)

 


Ursula Sits   
by Karenlee Thompson (Australia)

 

 

 


A LITTLE ABOUT THE WINNERS:

Jack Barker-Clark is a writer from a valley in the North of England. His fiction has appeared in several UK and US journals, and in 2020 he founded The Pale Quarter, an interdisciplinary arts-grasses collective. When not writing on literature he fixates on mountains, sparkling water, the Rolling Thunder Revue, ornamental grasses and vampires. He can be found in the flowerbeds after he’s put his boy to bed.

Shey Marque is a former scientist from a lab with striking similarity to a submarine. Told she was a square peg in a round hole, she defected to poetry. She’s obsessed with prose poetry and flash fiction, and how they morph from one to the other. ‘Holes do not need to be round!’ will be inscribed on her headstone. For narratives of varying shapes, please visit her collection ‘Keeper of the Ritual’ (UWA Publishing 2019). 

Alexandra Blogier is a writer who lives in Boston, Massachusetts and along the edge of Cape Cod. She is the author of the YA novel The Last Girl on Earth, hailed by the Center of Children’s Books as “an immersive and intriguing alien invasion story that focuses not on space battles but on relationships.” She is working on her next novel. 

Roland Leach lives on the coast in Perth, Western Australia, and spends most of his time teaching, writing and surfing. He used to enjoy travelling to islands around the world, and once had an Australia Council Grant to write in the Galapagos Islands. He peaked in the late 90s.

Kirsty Seymour-Ure is a freelance nonfiction editor by day and a writer of stories by night. Her flash fiction has been published in anthologies and magazines and she has co-authored a book of haiku with her cat. She has also written a novel, currently looking for a publisher. She lives in the rural wilds of Italy with chickens in the back yard and wolves in the woods behind her house.

Katherine Powlett lives on the wild North Norfolk coast, having moved there from the wilds of Soho. She still needs noise and adventure in her head, so she writes. She has often thought it would be nice to get more sleep. She likes vanilla cronuts, Scrabble, and swimming in the sea.. She dislikes the thought of having a pet, lychees, and running. She’s writing her first novel.

Sharma Taylor savours words and good food. A staunch lover of all things Caribbean, Sharma is a Jamaican lawyer living in Barbados. She won the 2020 Wasafiri Queen Mary New Writing Prize, the 2020 Frank Collymore Literary Endowment Award and the 2019 Bocas Lit Fest’s Johnson and Amoy Achong Caribbean Writers Prize.

Shoshauna Shy’s poems have been published in print and electronically, made into videos, displayed inside taxis, and plastered onto the hind quarters of city buses. She was delighted when the flash fiction spark joined the mix. Not a monogamous writer, she usually works on 7-11 pieces at one time. She is the founder of the Poetry Jumps Off the Shelf program, and the Woodrow Hall Top Shelf awards. She is the author of five collections of poetry.

Karenlee Thompson was born in Australia but her nomadic lifestyle sees her popping up all over the globe as she prises hidden stories from her surrounds. She has been published in a variety of magazines and anthologies in Australia, Ireland, and the UK and has published one themed collection of shorts (Flame Tip). She sings like a distressed raven and dances like Elaine from Seinfeld.

Laurence Gea: “Laurence Gea writes from Cork, Ireland. She grew up in France, and lived in the US, Italy and Belgium before settling in Ireland with her husband and two children. She is passionate about her family’s Pied-Noir background and is currently at work on a novel.”

 


 

Short-list:

(alphabetical order)

There are 59 flash stories in the short-list. (There were 1,468 entries in total.)

Six Million Reasons

Helen

Aherne

Both On and Off

Jack

Barker-Clark

Curing a Broken Heart

Robert

Barrett

Mirror Mirror

Mary

Bevan

Ouija

Alexandra

Blogier

Patient Angel

Alan

Coombe

Gomey

Kathy

D’Arcy

Damage

Jackie

Davis

Back on the River

Rick

Donahoe

Request

Rosemary

Eagle

Customer Service

Christina

Eagles

Confession

Frances

Gapper

Top Ten Reasons Why Pied-Noirs Are Good at Packing Suitcases

Laurence

Gea

The Randomness of Things

Richard

Hooton

Bedtime Story

Charlotte

Judet

Beneath Her Skin

Samantha

Keller

Is That You?

Jim

King

The dangers of historical reenactments

Kinneson

Lalor

My Vaudeville Dancing Days

Molly

Lanzarotta

Desert

Roland

Leach

Double Agent

Chris

Lee

I tread lightly

Jack

Lethbridge

One Is Such A Lonely Number

Fiona J

Mackintosh

Cataracts & Dogberries

Shey

Marque

Woolgathering

Shey

Marque

Labour

Colin

Martin

Melissa

Fhionna

McGeechan

Sworn to Secrecy

Michael

Mcloughlin

A Short Film About Seagulls

Bruce

Meyer

Rotten on the Bough

Alexander

Mobbs-Iles

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

Tom

Murray

Hindsight

John

Piggott

Wellness Check

James

Reed

Silent Signal

Jean

Roarty

Porky pens a winner

Mike

Rotheray

My mother is a garden where other people grow

Leonie

Rowland

Heat

Jonathan

Saint

Each Time History Repeats Itself, They Say the Price Goes Up

Shannon

Savvas

For The Last Time

Dee

Scallan

Lion

Kirsty

Seymour-Ure

The Cricketers Arms

Kirsty

Seymour-Ure

To Will One Thing

David

Sherman

What My Parents were Wearing
When She Decided Not to Keep Me

Shoshauna

Shy

Reverse Move

Gordon

Simms

Running Out

Kathryn

Smith

Just Another Summer Morning

Julian

Stanford

Meadow Margins

Julian

Stanford

Too Much Sun

JOHN

STEPHENS

Attachment issues

Pat

Storey

Amy Frail’s Walk

Sharma

Taylor

Late Night Ride

Lisa

Taylor

The Day Amy Kinona Became Invisible

Sharma

Taylor

Two needles, One Dog

Kevin

Thomas

Ursula Sits

Karenlee

Thompson

The Successful Ones Must Hate
the End of the World so Much

Julian

Wakeling

I thought I knew what love was

Rob

Ward

Pay it Forward

Phoebe

Whitlock

Skeleton in the Cupboard

Katherine

Powlett

Spider

Gaile

Wotherspoon

Negative

Michelle

Wright

 

 

Long-list 

(alphabetical order)

There are 170 flash stories in the long-list. (There were 1,468 entries in total.)

Six Million Reasons

Helen

Aherne

Play Dead

Maureen

Aitken

Out of Fashion

Elizabeth

Allen

Your love

Elizabeth

Allen

Ark

J.M.

Allnatt

Que reste-t-il de nos amours?

Peter-Adrian

Altini

Six Hours

Gloria

Amondi

Last Innings

Sue

Banister

He is Yours

April

Barcalow

Both On and Off

Jack

Barker-Clark

Wink

Robert

Barrett

Curing a Broken Heart

Robert

Barrett

Relocating

Ruth

Bevan

Mirror Mirror

Mary

Bevan

Deer Doris

Mary

Black

The Great Oak

Mark

Blackburn

Ouija

Alexandra

Blogier

The headscarf

JIM

BRADBURY

Entropy.

Andrea

Breen

Veranda

Andrea

Breen

A Strong One

Mark

Brom

Ghost

Stan

Brown

The Boy

Amanda

Buckwalter

Uncommon Birds

Emma

Bushmann

I don’t ‘do’ Champagne

Anne

Byrne

Sugar

Diana

Cambridge

The Edge

Alan

Carroll

A Practical Guide to Making Rain

Myna

Chang

Patient Angel

Alan

Coombe

Wells

Raymond

Cooney

Free Spirit

Karen

Cooper

Iroquois Theater Fire, Chicago, December 1903

Richard

Cooper

Innocent Eye

Karen

Cooper

Safety in the Home

Tim

Craig

“The Dregs”

Judith

Crandell

The Box with the Red Ribbon

Bernie

Crawford

Saturday Night in St Mâlo

REBECCA

CULLEN

The Performer

Patrick

Curran

Gomey

Kathy

D’Arcy

Damage

Jackie

Davis

OVER ON THE NORTH SIDE

Sharon

Dilworth

Back on the River

Rick

Donahoe

Sweetest Strawberries

Anne

Doyle

GALINA’S BIRTHDAY

Sallie

Durham

The Lifespan of a Window

Patrick

Eades

Lineage of Touch

Rosemary

Eagle

Request

Rosemary

Eagle

Customer Service

Christina

Eagles

A Cripple’s Guide to Living

Charlotte

Fodor

Snippets

Martina

Foreman

A Piece of Gold

Linda

Foster

Ribboned

Linda

Foster

The Dare

Linda

Foster

Yes, You Can

Cristina

Galvin

Let’s Pretend

Frances

Gapper

Confession

Frances

Gapper

Between the fields, the stream rushes

Murray

Garrard

Stray Bullet

Laurence

Gea

Top Ten Reasons Why Pied-Noirs Are Good at Packing Suitcases

Laurence

Gea

Unvanquished

M

Gethins

The Deep End of a Desert

Damian

Giampietro

Lost

Penny

Gibson

Happy Ending as Teenage Runaway Is reunited with Father

Donna

Greenwood

FOR MY NEXT TRICK

Charles

Hadfield

MUSEE PICASSO

Jill

Hadfield

Death Sits Heavily on My Shoulders

Melody

Hall

The Forbidden City

Jeffrey

Hantover

[mohr-ning] [suhn]

Jane

Harrington

Florentine woman

Patrick

Hewitt

The Sodality of Sorrow

Margaret

Hickey

The Detective

Lesley

Holmes

The Randomness of Things

Richard

Hooton

Hiraeth

Kathy

Hoyle

A Commentary on our Times

Philip

Hunter

What do you do

Louise

Ihringer

Fallen Leaves

Clay

Iles

Hey Dad

Mohamad

Jomaa

Bedtime Story

Charlotte

Judet

Beneath Her Skin

Samantha

Keller

The Accordion Player

James Allan

Kennedy

Is That You?

Jim

King

A Lizard Named Leo

Sarah

Klenbort

Suzerian

gary

kohl

Congratulations

Mimi

Kunz

Sharing

Mimi

Kunz

Optimistic Bed Linen

Laura

Kyle

The dangers of historical reenactments

Kinneson

Lalor

My Vaudeville Dancing Days

Molly

Lanzarotta

Desert

Roland

Leach

Double Agent

Chris

Lee

The Red Soil of Matheran

Jack

Lethbridge

I tread lightly

Jack

Lethbridge

Painted Faces

Karolina

Letunova

Sinclair and Jeff

Kik

Lodge

Why my brother won’t dance

Kik

Lodge

A Kind of Fighting

K. S.

Lokensgard

One Is Such A Lonely Number

Fiona J

Mackintosh

Baby Brain Motel

John

MacMillen

Lockdown madness

Nathalie

Markiefka

Cataracts & Dogberries

Shey

Marque

Woolgathering

Shey

Marque

Chapters

Bruce

Marrison

Labour

Colin

Martin

Melissa

Fhionna

McGeechan

Sworn to Secrecy

Michael

Mcloughlin

The Music Starts

Andrew

McWilliams

A Short Film About Seagulls

Bruce

Meyer

Rotten on the Bough

Alexander

Mobbs-Iles

The Escape

Rose

Morris

The Lie

Rose

Morris

Call Anytime

Tracy

Murphy

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

Tom

Murray

Not the Auguries for a Peaceable Night

Thivakaran

Narayanan

The ivory-white space

Nikunj

Nathany

An eternity of sorts

Ian

Nettleton

Triptych: Scene of Crime

Patricia

Newbery

2013

Jordan

Nishkian

Things I Have Lost

Michelle

North-Coombes

Ladybird

Maria

O’Brien

Words

Kate

O’Leary

Shag

Heather

Pearson

A Present Tense

GC

Perry

Hindsight

John

Piggott

Skeleton in the Cupboard

Katherine

Powlett

Peace

Lauren

Preston

Number Two Pencil

Shannon

Ramos

Rehumanised

Helen

Rana

To Pelham Bay Park and Beyond

Siri

Ranganath

Wellness Check

James

Reed

Silent Signal

Jean

Roarty

Porky pens a winner

Mike

Rotheray

My mother is a garden where other people grow

Leonie

Rowland

Heat

Jonathan

Saint

The Postman

Michael

Salander

A Perfect Game

Sam

Sanders

Thoughtless

Dennis

Sargent

Each Time History Repeats Itself, They Say the Price Goes Up

Shannon

Savvas

For The Last Time

Dee

Scallan

Fallen

seamus

scanlon

Lion

Kirsty

Seymour-Ure

The Cricketers Arms

Kirsty

Seymour-Ure

Room 211

David

Sherman

To Will One Thing

David

Sherman

What My Parents were Wearing When She Decided Not to Keep Me

Shoshauna

Shy

Reverse Move

Gordon

Simms

Personal Geology

Jay

Skardis

Too Late

Johanna

Skinner

Silence

Frances

Sloan

Running Out

Kathryn

Smith

Just Another Summer Morning

Julian

Stanford

Meadow Margins

Julian

Stanford

Too Much Sun

JOHN

STEPHENS

An Uncertain Sea

Victoria

Stewart

Attachment issues

Pat

Storey

10 Items

Sharma

Taylor

Amy Frail’s Walk

Sharma

Taylor

Late Night Ride

Lisa

Taylor

The Day Amy Kinona Became Invisible

Sharma

Taylor

Protect Me

Brendan

Thomas

Two needles, One Dog

Kevin

Thomas

Ursula Sits

Karenlee

Thompson

Hazel Currie Catches Fire

LISA

TRIGG

Hazel Currie Walked to the School House with Olga Broumas

LISA

TRIGG

Survivor of Modern Romance

Jamie

Valentino

The Confession

Thomas

Wachner

The Successful Ones Must Hate the End of the World so Much

Julian

Wakeling

I thought I knew what love was

Rob

Ward

Bee

Debra

Waters

Pay it Forward

Phoebe

Whitlock

Spider

Gaile

Wotherspoon

Negative

Michelle

Wright

Short Memoir Prize 2021: Results, Short & Long-lists

April 1st, 2021 | Uncategorized | Comments Off on Short Memoir Prize 2021: Results, Short & Long-lists

Winners

Short-list

Long-list

On behalf of all of us at Fish, we congratulate the 10 winners who made it to the Anthology, and those writers who made the long and short-lists.


 

The 10 Winners:

Blake Morrison - Judge of the 2021 Fish Memoir Prize

Blake Morrison
2021 Judge

Selected by Blake Morrison.

 

 

 

 

These 10 winners will be published in the Fish Anthology 2021.

FIRST

Blood and Roses

by   Mary E.

Black  (N. Ireland)

SECOND

Becoming

by   Hannah

Persaud  (Stroud, UK)

THIRD

Dreams of Foreign Cities

by   Martha G.

Wiseman  (New York)

HONORARY MENTIONS,
in no particular order.

   

Schmaltz

by   Francesca

Humphreys  (London)

Broken Lines

by   Mary

Brown  (Ireland)Mary Brown

Fissure

by   Ellyn

Gelman  (Connecticut, USA)

Before the Dark Hour of Reason

by   Kevin

Acott  (London)

Borderline Insanity

by   Anthony

Dew  (England)

Dancing with Parkinson’s

by   Leslie

Mapp  (London)

I have my suspicions about that Dachshund

by   Alice

Jolly  (Stroud, UK)

A little about the winners:

Mary E. Black is a medical doctor and storyteller from Northern Ireland. She engages with coral reefs, conflict zones, Covid-19 and climate change and writes opinion columns. Mary won the 2021 IWC Novel Fair with Keep Darkness from the Door, a commercial medical drama set in 1980’s Ireland and inspired by a true scandal. An oarsman rescued her from pirates in the Bay of Bengal. Their two children were born underwater and are champion sailors. She sings. @DrMaryBlack

Hannah Persaud was born in England and spent her first twenty years moving around England and then South East Asia before settling in London where she promptly fell in love with a Canadian and uprooted again for Toronto. She now lives in Stroud with her family. Her debut novel The Codes of Love was published in 2020 just before covid changed everything, and her short stories have won numerous prizes. She plans to write a full-length memoir.

Martha G. Wiseman has published poetry, fiction, and nonfiction; four of her essays have appeared in The Georgia Review. Her growing up was split between North Carolina and New York City. Brief lives in the theatre and as a dancer and choreographer preceded her careers as editor, bookseller, and, most happily, teacher of writing and literature at Skidmore College, from which she recently retired. Now, she writes and reads.

Francesca Humphreys is studying for a Masters in Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London. She was born and raised in London and trained as a singer and actor. In her writing, she examines the scope of her appetites, the role that hunger has played in shaping her identity and the effects of what she calls ‘inherited immigrant syndrome’. When not writing, Francesca teaches high-octane indoor cycling classes and pilates. 

Mary Brown once lived in a cottage with lime trees and a hammock from which she could watch starlings rearranging the evening sky. She has been a nocturnal walker in three cities. She has played the other woman in a Mexican fotonovela. Noticing how many of her plots hinge on plumbing – from Roman to anatomical – she wonders what her subconscious is up to. Once it was dancing tangos that made her float. Now it’s the Donegal sea.

Ellyn Gelman is a storyteller by nature and recently decided to capture her stories on the page. After earning an MFA in creative writing, she relocated to Manhattan to write, attend theater andwander the museums. When the pandemic shut down NY City, she moved to Connecticut whereshe still lives. Her best adventures include dogsledding on a glacier in Alaska and white waterrafting down the Rio Grande.

Kevin Acott is a lecturer, photographer and glutton for punishment who supports Spurs, loves Trieste, North Carolina and Greenland, listens to Motown, Emmylou and Jah Wobble, stares lovingly at Victorian architecture, and drinks Redbreast and Eagle Rare (though not usually at the same time). Born in Edmonton, he spent most of his adult life in Surrey with his nose pressed up against London’s window, before finally breaking in again and making it to Crouch End.

Anthony Dew has been a seaman, writer, artist, artisan, flouter of orders, rescuer of distressed seabirds and toads, hippy, deadhead, lover of all varieties of women, faithful husband (more than once), father, grandfather and designer and maker of some of the most beautiful (and the biggest) rocking-horses in this world or previous ones. He forgot to mention learner and teacher. He laughs at cameras and is ten times older than he looks.

Leslie Mapp writes from the inside about living with Parkinson’s, the incurable brain condition that progressively disrupts your movement, thinking and feeling. Having been writing short stories, imagining other people’s lives, on diagnosis Leslie realized that the big story was now his own. Dancing with Parkinson’s, tells of an unexpected discovery along the way.

Alice Jolly’s most recent novel Mary Ann Sate, Imbecile was runner up for the Rathbones Folio Prize in 2018. Alice has also won the Pen Ackerley Prize and the V.S. Pritchett Memorial Prize. Her short stories have appeared in Prospect, Ploughshares, The Manchester Review, Litro and Fairlight. She teaches creative writing at Oxford University.


Blake Morrison´s thoughts on the winners.

Blood and Roses 

A compelling piece by a Northern Irish doctor detailing her experiences in war-torn Sarajevo, where she worked to help badly wounded civilians escape for medical treatment in Germany. Narrated in fragments – the logic of which is beautifully accounted for in the concluding section – the piece moves from the image of Sarejevo roses commemorating the dead, through her doctor-parents’ involvement with blood donors, to her own humanitarian and medical work for the WHO. There’s the odd typo but it’s powerful first-hand, front-line reportage, careful to avoid any taint of voyeurism, both compassionate and composed throughout. 

Becoming

A set of narrative fragments or vignettes, assembled like a mosaic; spots of time from a life lived in Nepal, India, London and Yorkshire; each piece clear and compelling; several of them evoking moments of threat.  As the title suggests, the narrative, though fractured and episodic, is about the growth of an individual and an exploration of identity – as told by someone caught between different cultures and ethnicities. I hope the writer will keep going and add more.

Dreams of Foreign Cities 

At one level an exploration of a failed marriage; at another a meditation on the part that cities, real or imagined, can play in a life. The tone is elegiac but not self-pitying; dialogue is expertly handled. The last of the dreams running through it ends on a note of courage and hope. 

Schmaltz 

Beautifully written and constructed piece about the friendship and video calls/texts between two women, one in London, the other New York, both Jewish and both much preoccupied by their Jewishness. It’s a fascinating exploration of ‘inherited immigrant syndrome’, touching on loneliness, mothers and failed relationships with men as well as identity.

Broken Lines 

Short, powerful, first-hand account of the 1986 earthquake in Mexico City, as experienced by a woman who’d gone there after her father’s death and was on the verge of meeting a man who might have told her more about him. The ending is inconclusive, but necessarily so. I liked the detailed recollection of the trauma, including the ‘accordion’ effect of flattened buildings.  

Fissure 

The piece might have been called ‘Trees’ or ‘Roots’ but the aptness of the title is revealed in the final paragraph. It’s a story in part about the end of a marriage – and a woman in mid-life wanting and finding more than marriage can give her. Partly set in a writers’ retreat, it’s well-structured and subtly resolved.

Before The Dark Hour of Reason 

Or, as it might have been titled ’saudade’, since that’s the concept, almost impossible to define, that the piece sets out to explore, along with memories of a lifelong close friend. A bold foray into the inexpressible, which lifts off to great effect with its long riff, or list, on pages 7-9.

Borderline Insanity 

A clever double-take on a neighbourly dispute, the first third a visceral account of the narrator’s attack on a farmer, the rest a dialogue which slowly reveals a) the source of the dispute, b) that the attack took place only in the narrator’s imagination, and c) how the dispute was really (almost comically) resolved. Innovative and engaging. 

Dancing with Parkinson’s

A wonderfully informative piece about what Parkinson’s feels like from the inside. The first half works best by focusing on dance; the second half is more of a summary rather than recounting particular episodes. I’d love to see the author write a whole book on the subject.

I Have My Suspicions about That Dachshund 

Gripping account about the theft of a dog (along with a truck) and its recovery. Simple, direct and at times very funny, with revealing insights into both the schisms in and the tightness of a rural community.


 

Short-list (Alphabetical order):

 There are 60 memoirs on the short-list. (There were 1,301 entries in total.)

Note: It has been suggested that we only publish authors’ names from the long and short-listed entries, and not the titles. If this is a concern, please email info@fishpublishing.com.

How could you be so stupid? A dialogue with myself.

Stephen

Abbott

Lost Chord

Hal

Ackerman

The Dark Of Reason

KEVIN

ACOTT

Friends

Dom

Amatuzio

The House of Caves

Polly

Atkin

A Summer’s Day

Tony

Barrett

Melting Time

Francesca

Beddie

Blood and Roses

Mary

Black

The Last Day of the USSR

Terry

Bushell

Framing the Land

Linda

Calvey

How to Hold A Chopstick

Jenny

Chang

Driftwood

casey

charles

Up the Town

Emma

Cummins

some times abroad

Penelope

Curtis

Borderline Insanity

Anthony

Dew

Ripper

Bryony

Doran

half made up …

Rebecca

Farmer

The point is the butterfly drowns

Nikki

Friedman

Fissure

Ellyn

Gelman

The Duck-Rabbit Thing

Lou

Goldberg

River Hunt

fred

haefele

Queen Catherine’s Kitchen

Jonathan

Hauxwell

The Canyons of Her Mind

Lesley

Holmes

Born with a Bomb

Helga

Horsthemke

Till Someone Else Remains

Porter

Huddleston

Don’t Feed on Carrion

Mary

Irving

I have my suspicions about that Dachshund

Alice

Jolly

First find the right soill

anne m

jones

The Lake

Caitriona

Kelly

One of Those Girls

Lucinda

Kempe

Wyatt Brothers

Tom

King

Schmaltz

Francesca

Leonie

Fat Lip

Stephanie

Liberatore

Traverse and restore

Priya

Logan

Burbank Circle

Angela

Long

Dancing with Parkinson’s

Leslie

Mapp

Memoir of a National Service Officer

Brian

Martin

Jimmy Cagney’s Not My Dad

Sherri

Matthews

The Ides of March

Matt

Mauch

Skin Craft

Marcia

Meier

Idling away

Jørgen

Møller

Aldersnap

Marion

Molteno

Stranded

paddy

moore

A Bucket of Current

John

Moran

Holes

Liz

Nicholas

Controlling chaos

Julia

O’Hara

Of All Things Temporary

Adam

O’Keeffe

Becoming

Hannah

Persaud

The Truth Tale

PIA

RABIN

Bread Run

Richard

Robbins

Johannesburg 1954

Ruth

Schmidt Neven

The Beat May Not Go On

Marcia

Schultz

Belfast

Michelle

Scorziello

Reflection on Mortality

pierce

scranton

The Headingly Cowboy

Chris

Smith

Buzz Saw in Seven Parts

Carmen

Speer

To Tahiti in 2020

Rachael

Sprot

Eleven Seconds

Julia

Tjeknavorian

The Dead They’re Never Coming Back

Robert

Wallace

The Sense of a Funeral

Donna

Ward

Dreams of Foreign Cities

Martha

Wiseman

The Baby Book

Graham

Woodroffe

 


 

Long-list:

There are 196 memoirs on the long-list. (There were 1,301 entries in total.)

How could you be so stupid? A dialogue with myself.

Stephen

Abbott

Lost Chord

Hal

Ackerman

The Dark Of Reason

KEVIN

ACOTT

Square Level True

Mara

Adamitz Scrupe

Take Wing Sis

Tess

Adams

Neither here, nor there

Amanda

Addison

Friends

Dom

Amatuzio

Slices of Life

janet

applegarth

The House of Caves

Polly

Atkin

Out There

Doaa

Baker

A Summer’s Day

Tony

Barrett

Bandaged legs on a floral bedspread

Roxanne

Batty

Tiny Golden Seeds

Kathy

Beach

Melting Time

Francesca

Beddie

LOOKING FOR A WAGON

Carole

Berkson

Women Bleed

Sue

Bevan

How could it happen?

Judy

Birkbeck

Blood and Roses

Mary

Black

House

rosalind

bouverie

Broken Lines

Mary

Brown

The Legacy

J. R.

Brown

The Last Day of the USSR

Terry

Bushell

My Time to Shine

Derek

Byrne

Framing the Land

Linda

Calvey

Puta de Cana

Maria

Carson

How to Hold A Chopstick

Jenny

Chang

Driftwood

casey

charles

Zanzibar

Phyllida

Clarke

A Woman In White

Edel

Coffey

On Track

Rhonda

Collis

reunion

Rebecca

Couper

God’s Clothesline

Eanlai

Cronin

Up the Town

Emma

Cummins

Mystic Hills

Charles

Curtis

some times abroad

Penelope

Curtis

The Crossing to England

Amir

Darwish

The Artist and the Birdman

Katherine

Davey

Parts Per Million

Andrew

DeVoy

Borderline Insanity

Anthony

Dew

A Significance of Blood

bryony

doran

Ripper

bryony

doran

Ripper

Bryony

Doran

The Merry-Go-Round

Elizabeth

Doyle

Duff by Nature

Nicola

Duff

“A Pink Tale”

ana

duffy

Disgraced

Jennifer

Durban

Arches

Julian

Edelman

Sands of Time

Mel

Eldridge

UNEVEN SURFACES

Carmen

Estevez

Being Middle Class or Brexit and Me

mary

evans

half made up …

Rebecca

Farmer

My very, very old mum

max

farrar

Soviet Childhood

Victor

Figueroa

Time Trial

Dave

Fisher

Duckie and Me

Robert

Freedman

The Pilgrimage

Jane

Freeman

The point is the butterfly drowns

Nikki

Friedman

Scottish Convent Boy

Mark

Gallacher

Fissure

Ellyn

Gelman

“The Limited Possibility of Second Chances”

Sharon

Gillespie

Seven Things You Might Not Know About Fainting Goats

DIANE

GOETTEL

The Duck-Rabbit Thing

Lou

Goldberg

Mother, Mother: Lost and Found

Lisa

Greggo

ALL THE KING’S HORSES

JULIA

GRIGG

River Hunt

fred

haefele

Naming Dogs from Memory

Neil

Harrison

Queen Catherine’s Kitchen

Jonathan

Hauxwell

Ride into the dark

Michael

Heffernan

Return to Innocence

Niall

Heffernan

Connecticut: A Horse Happening

Janet M

Hicks

Unwritten Postcards from the Void

Rachael

Hill

Certain Changes in the Region of the Heart

Judy

Hindley

You on a Mountain

Rachel

Hinkel-Wang

The Canyons of Her Mind

Lesley

Holmes

Water and Unity 水共洪

Allison

Hong Merrill

ARRIVAL

Kim

Hope

Born with a Bomb

Helga

Horsthemke

Dumb Cow

Liz

Houchin

Whispering to Our Sons

Porter

Huddleston

The Tillamook Conspiracy

Porter

Huddleston

Till Someone Else Remains

Porter

Huddleston

Shoveling Sand (Updated Version)

Justin

Hunt

Bulls and Scars

Nick

Hunt

Chicken

Giovanna

Iozzi

Don’t Feed on Carrion

Mary

Irving

Escape from Execution

Sagamba Muhira &

James Page

I have my suspicions about that Dachshund

Alice

Jolly

Brian and me – his illness, my life

Portland

Jones

All You Need To Know About Grandad

Romi

Jones

First find the right soill

anne m

jones

Not Brave Enough

Linda

Jorgenson

A Morning Tide

Avril

Joy

The Blarney Man

John

Karter

“No One Will Notice.”

Brian

Kelly

The Lake

Caitriona

Kelly

The System

Bella

Kemble

One of Those Girls

Lucinda

Kempe

Whatever Else

Jim

King

Shoot the Messenger

Tom

King

Wyatt Brothers

Tom

King

Rosaleen

Peter

Kingston

Again and Again

Sally

Krueger-Wyman

Two Trips Behind the Iron Curtain

Joanne

Langdale

Time Laid Gently On Its Side

Kathleen

Langstroth

Peg o’ My Heart

Katherine

Leisering

Health and Safety

Siobhan

Lennon

Moses

Siobhan

Lennon

Schmaltz

Francesca

Leonie

A Pinch of paprika

Helen

Lewis

Fat Lip

Stephanie

Liberatore

“Disappear”

Scott

Lipanovich

Traverse and restore

Priya

Logan

Burbank Circle

Angela

Long

The Sacred Disease

Daniel

Lovatt

A Matter of Softness

Teegan

Mannion

Dancing with Parkinson’s

Leslie

Mapp

Memoir of a National Service Officer

Brian

Martin

Jimmy Cagney’s Not My Dad

Sherri

Matthews

The Ides of March

Matt

Mauch

Black Flowers and Brahms

Barbara

Mayo-Wells

The Room above the E of Eden

Jo

Mazelis

The Monday Man

Angela

McCabe

Sinners and Saints

Alan

McCormick

Commonplace

Laura

McDonagh

This is why, this is me.

Graham

Meaden

Skin Craft

Marcia

Meier

On Writing Home

Barbara

Mogerley

Idling away

Jørgen

Møller

Aldersnap

Marion

Molteno

Aldersnap

Marion

Molteno

Crow Pose

Mandy

Moore

Stranded

paddy

moore

A Bucket of Current

John

Moran

THe Girl  That Flies

Catherine

Moscatt

Flies

Sean W

Murphy

Sunday Afternoons With Ian.

Nicola

Murray

Ma

Colleen

Newquist

THE HOUSE ON MAIN STREET

Cláir

Ní Aonghusa

Holes

Liz

Nicholas

Sausage in the pushchair

Judith

Nicol

I Knew the President’s Name

Jen

Nightingale

Martial Law

Amanda

Noble

In a Nickname

Eileen

O’Connor

Locker Lockout

Joan

O’Grady

Controlling chaos

Julia

O’Hara

Of All Things Temporary

Adam

O’Keeffe

Death’s Alphabet: Prolegomenon to A Memoir

TAIWO ADETUNJI

OSINUBI

Virginity

Ainhoa

Palacios

Routeburn

Mellisa

Pascale

Becoming

Hannah

Persaud

A Sunday Dinner Outing

Vivian

Pisano

The Truth Tale

PIA

RABIN

The Fabulous Salami Brothers

Mat

Ricardo

FRENCH AFFAIRS

Jane

Riddell

Bread Run

Richard

Robbins

Failing Angela

Rob

Roberts

Parabola

Howard

Robertson

Unravelling

Carey

Saunders

Johannesburg 1954

Ruth

Schmidt Neven

The Beat May Not Go On

Marcia

Schultz

Belfast

Michelle

Scorziello

Reflection on Mortality

pierce

scranton

13 Months

Kelley

Smith

Playing Statues with Iris

Richard

Smith

Though she is fierce she is loved

Richard

Smith

The Headingly Cowboy

Chris

Smith

What’s So Bad about Rape?

Carmen

Speer

Buzz Saw in Seven Parts

Carmen

Speer

Skyway

Kate

Spitzmiller

To Tahiti in 2020

Rachael

Sprot

An Epic Bromance or Rocky has His Day in Court

Faye

Srala

Love Bottle

Jill

Strachan

Tomorrow I Will Ask Him What He Really Did In The War

Kevin

Sutton

A View Near the Borderline

Ann

Thompson

Eleven Seconds

Julia

Tjeknavorian

GIVING UP

Lily

Todd

Scarcely Loved

Elizabeth

Tranquilli

Feast Day

Natasha

Tripney

TWO EGGS FOR ABBOTT AND COSTELLO

Erica

Van Horn

Blind Spot

Lynette

Vialet

The Dead They’re Never Coming Back

Robert

Wallace

Black and Blue

Roxy

Walsh

Into the Blue

Michelle

Walshe

Rupture

Cally

Ward

The Sense of a Funeral

Donna

Ward

A little book of friends – Yanick

Michael

Wells

One Dark Blot

Brad

Whitehurst

Rhodesia 1966

Elizabeth

Whittome

The Engineer’s Daughter

Mary

Williams

The Reflecting Pool And Other Brushes With The Unexplained

Guinotte

Wise

Dreams of Foreign Cities

Martha

Wiseman

The Baby Book

Graham

Woodroffe

The Child is father to the Man

Michael

Woolman

Where Are You Now?

Enda

Wyley

Replanting again and again

Aydin

Yildirim

Pavan and Me: A Non-Retirement Story

Claire

Yurdin

Parents Night

Jim

Zervanos

 

Short Story Prize 2020/21: Results, Short & Long-lists

March 17th, 2021 | Uncategorized | Comments Off on Short Story Prize 2020/21: Results, Short & Long-lists

Winners

Short-list

Long-list

On behalf of all of us at Fish, we would like to congratulate the 10 winners and also those who made the short and long lists.


Emily Ruskovich, judge of the 2020 Fish Short Story Prize

Judge, Emily Ruskovich

 

The Ten Winners:

Selected by Emily Ruskovich

The 10 winners will be published in the Fish Anthology 2021.

(There were 1,631 entries to the competition.)

     
 

FIRST:
A Correspondence


by Mark Martin  (New York)

 

SECOND:
Methane


by Pavle Miha  (Portugal)

 

THIRD:
The Fisherman


by Chris Weldon  (Hampshire)

 

Aleksandr

by Amanda Huggins  (Yorkshire)

 

The Etymology of a Sword Swallower

by K Lockwood Jefford  (Wales)

 

How to Accept the Lunar Landing

by Nicole Olweean  (USA)

 

Duck Egg Blue

by Fiona Ennis  (Waterford, Ireland)

 

OMG Winn Handler Moved Next Door!

by Lesley Bannatyne   (Boston, USA)

  Connemara  Salmon by Kathy MacGloin   (Scotland)
  Rick and Molly Drink Giles Newington  (Dublin)
     

A little about the winners:

Mark Martin was born in England and did his best to grow up there. Late in his teens, novels and poetry prompted Mark to rescue his education in the nick of time, a debt to literature that will happily never be paid off. Recently, his short stories have been accepted by the Manchester Review, Dark Mountain, Storgy, the Missouri Review, and Stand. The copy chief at Verso Books, he lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son, a state of contentment he has done little to deserve.

Pavle Miha is a new writer and Methane is his first published story. He was born in Portugal to Serbian parents and moved to London when he was 18 to work as a game developer. He co-founded Flavourworks where they created Erica, an innovative marriage of games and film for iOS and PlayStation 4. Methane was inspired by a summer spent staring out of the window, and too many failed attempts at making sourdough bread. 

Chris Weldon was born in 1948 in Worcestershire to Irish parents. He was largely raised in England but spent a fair amount of his childhood in rural Ireland. Having screwed up a degree in Classics he travelled abroad extensively in a long career in the aerospace industry. Now retired in Hampshire, England he is married with two grown children and four grandchildren. He was fortunate enough to win the Fish publishing Short Story Prize in 2015.

Amanda Huggins is a creative writing tutor and copy editor who writes (very slowly) about love, loss and the sea. She is the author of the novella, All Our Squandered Beauty, and four collections of short stories and poetry. Amanda won her first writing prize for a love poem to George Best when she was eleven. She grew up on the North Yorkshire coast and now lives near landlocked Leeds.

K. Lockwood Jefford grew up in Cardiff with an obsession for books and cartwheels. She worked as an NHS psychiatrist and psychotherapist alongside a stint in stand-up comedy before completing an MA in creative writing at Birkbeck. Her work appears in many publications including Brick Lane Bookshop’s 2020 Prize Anthology and Prospect Magazine online. Her short story, Picasso’s Face, won the 2020 VS Pritchett Prize. She is over the moon to be selected for Fish 2021.

Nicole Olweean holds an MFA in Creative Writing from University of California, Riverside. She is a poet first, and this is her first story publication. She is obsessed with community climate resiliency and is now the person to whom every friend sends their climate memes. She is preparing to move to Glasgow for an MSW program so she can make her obsession a job, write a book, and get lost in the Highlands on weekends.

Dr. Fiona Ennis lectures in Literature and Philosophy in Waterford Institute of Technology. She has won the Molly Keane Creative Writing Award. Her fiction has been shortlisted for the Bristol Short Story Prize and the U.S. based Philosophy Ethics Short Story Award. Her work has also been highly commended in both the Manchester Fiction Prize and the Seán Ó Faoláin International Short Story Prize. Her work has been published in anthologies and journals.  

Lesley Bannatyne is a freelance journalist who’s covered stories ranging from druids in Somerville, Massachusetts to relief workers in Bolivia. One of the US’s  authorities on the celebration and history of Halloween in the United States, Bannatyne and several compatriots set the Guinness World Record for Largest October 31st Gathering, a title they held with gusto from 2007-2009. Her short stories, essays, and books can be found on iskullhalloween.com, and she is crazy grateful to be a part of the Fish Anthology.

Kathy MacGloin was born in Aberdeen.  Her parents, from Counties Mayo and Longford, and her two remarkable siblings, sang songs to her and told her stories, and let her be the only one with ginger hair.  She grew up in the North of England, studied in Cambridge, Sweden and London and now works as an anaesthetist in a hospital with a helicopter and button-less lifts.  She likes poetry, handkerchiefs and the song of the blackbird.   

Giles Newington moved to Dublin from London in 1996. He worked for nearly 20 years as a journalist at The Irish Times. Over the past decade, he’s been published in various magazines and the Hibernian Writers Group anthology, and shortlisted in the Fish poetry and short story competitions. He was one of the winners in this year’s Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair. He’s spent the pandemic year in Dublin watching a lot of football with his two adult sons. 

Emily Ruskovich´s thoughts on the top three stories:

A Correspondence
I loved this story for its sincerity, its whole-hearted devotion to its characters. Morgan’s heart lies in the past, in the secrets of old letters discovered in older books. The letters themselves were absolutely engrossing. I loved the voices, and the plot turns. This story achieves so much so quickly. The characterizations are few but perfect. I loved the predicament at the story’s heart. Morgan longs to reveal the secret of the deceased gentleman, but there is no one she can tell it to. What she wants most of all is for the world to acknowledge his sacrifice and his goodness. She cannot bear that Constance doesn’t know. But the end was oddly satisfying, to see her come to accept that she herself can be the world that knows. That the acknowledgment of just one person is enough. And she will be that person for this dead man. It’s deeply moving. 

Methane
I absolutely loved this story of quiet horror, taking place on our planet after humankind has abused it to the point of no return. 
But, inside of this vast and horrific premise—made more horrific by the very real possibility of this future— the story itself is very small. The story of a person trying to discover something within himself. And that was what most captivated me. Sometimes, it’s as if the people have forgotten what it used to be like to live in a world not poisoned by the selfishness of the past. That was very tragic, the way they are trying to find meaning in a world past generations have ruined for them.
Thanks so much for the pleasure of this profound story.

The Fisherman
This story moved me deeply. I loved the lyrical language, the attention to detail, the immersion in the natural world. You are an immensely talented writer, and I could feel the heartbeat of this story, that you have really touched upon the things that matter most. It’s a very simple story, but it stirred complex emotions for me. I’m thrilled that this story is now finding its way out into the world.
Thank you for the honor of reading this remarkable piece of fiction.

 

 


 

Short-list:

(alphabetical order) There are 58 stories on the short-list. (There were 1,631 entries in total.)

Burnt Eyes, Grass Blades

George

Alabaster

Xuan Loc Limbo

Ernest

Amabile

Going Back

Terri

Armstrong

OMG Winn Handler Moved Next Door!

Lesley

Bannatyne

Freeze, Peach

Edward

Barnfield

Production Values

Tim

Booth

Scallop Shell

Lorcan

Byrne

The Innocents of Eden

Curtis

Cushman

Taymour’s Apology

Michael

Donaghy

A Boy Called Luke

Patrick

Eades

Dreams of a Catfish

Patrick

Eades

She’s Dead, But She Won’t Lie Down

Judyth

Emanuel

Buckaroo

Ingrid

Evans

The Sea

Rob

Ganley

Change of Light

Pamela

Gay

The Island of Sodor

Kristina

Gorcheva-Newberry

Vasily’s Big Break

Patrick

Gray

An Ocean Apart

Steve

Hawes

In Miniature

Emily

Howes

When We Lived Opposite Portugal

Susan

Hurley

The Triple G

Gregory

Jeffers

Becoming Whale

Jupiter

Jones

A Touch of Gladness

Cilla

Kent

Elegy for a Lost Cause

Thomas

Kiernan

Lillie

Sandy

kundra verma

The Migratory Journey of the Swallow

Jane

Lavelle

Of Flesh and Bone

John

Lavelle

The Leaving

Carolyn

Lewis

Nudes

Petra

Lindnerová

Conditions for an Avalanche

K

Lockwood Jefford

Sky An Iris

Niamh

MacCabe

Algorithm Rebel

Michael

Males

The Atlantic’s Cold Edge

Kieran

Marsh

A Correspondence

Mark

Martin

Pigeon’s Blood Red

Ken

McBeath

Rest in Peace Francesco Porta

Bruce

Meyer

Crows

David

Micklem

Methane

Pavle

Miha

Dear Comrade Tito

Tatjana

Mirkov-Popovicki

A Tale from Japanese Mythology: Urashima Meets the Fish-King

Max

Mitchell

Greenstick

Emma

Neale

Rick and Molly Drink

Giles

Newington

PERU

David

O Dwyer

How to Accept the Lunar Landing

Nicole

Olweean

Carry Me

Patrick

Parks

Title (to be decided)

Hannah

Persaud

Heroes?

Misha

Rai

Knill Close

Hannah

Retallick

Inhale, Exhale and into Exile

James

Richardson

The Last of the Mohicans

John

Rutter

Tea with the Queen

Jasmine

Sawers

A Life In Useless Objects

Adrian

Scanlan

Letter to Persephone

Dorothy

Schwarz

Layers

Lindsay

Sears

Neelam’s Wedding

Janet

Swinney

Future Perfect: The Burning City

Mike

Wasson

Lump

Aisling

Watters

The Origin

Tim

Weed

Slinky

Michelle

Wright

 

 


 

Long-list:

(alphabetical order)

There are 219 stories in the long-list. (There were 1,631 entries in total.)

Burnt Eyes, Grass Blades

George

Alabaster

The Noise School

Robin

Allender

The Golden Button

Peter-Adrian

Altini

Xuan Loc Limbo

Ernest

Amabile

Dance of the Sylphs

Rita

Ariyoshi

Shame

Terri

Armstrong

Going Back

Terri

Armstrong

The Division of Names

Azure

Arther

Sweetpea

Eimear

Arthur

My Sister’s Presence

Pamela

Baker

OMG Winn Handler Moved Next Door!

Lesley

Bannatyne

Freeze, Peach

Edward

Barnfield

Nine Ways You Know You’re In Love With Her

John-Paul

Bernbach

The Golden Frog

David

Bevan

You Should Be Happy

Iva

Bezinović-Haydon

Production Values

Tim

Booth

Cry

Lindsay

Boyd

Hey, Paddy

Mary

Bradford

Horror Workshop

Philip

Brown

Pandemic Paradox

Philip

Brown

Socially Distant

Giuseppina

Bruni

The Angel of Gennevilliers

Jennifer

Bryce

Endure When You Must

Emily

Buddenberg

Her Own Personal Savior (pdf final copy miracles)

Poppy

Burton

Scallop Shell

Lorcan

Byrne

Apple Seeds

Fija

Callaghan

THE BICYCLE

Aoife

Casby

Reliable Witness

Clemintine

Cervantez

Grand, Chowringhee

Bidisha

Chakraborty

Her Fluttering Womb

Elaine

Chiew

In Time

Rebecca

Clay

Animal Rescue

D S

Cochran

The Heart of a Boy

Rhonda

Collis

Burning of the Pinetum

Rae

Cowie

Lockdown Differences

Kathryn

Crowley

Fun Facts

Douglas

Currier

The Innocents of Eden

Curtis

Cushman

The Comedian

Robert

Daseler

The Frenchman delivers

David

Day

Sick Beasts

Janice

Deal

Chasing Sadie

Odette

Des Forges

Wouldn’t read about it

Odette

Des Forges

Taymour’s Apology

Michael

Donaghy

Rockpool

Stephen

Downes

Imposing Order on a Random World

Garret

Dwyer Joyce

A Boy Called Luke

Patrick

Eades

Dreams of a Catfish

Patrick

Eades

She’s Dead, But She Won’t Lie Down

Judyth

Emanuel

Duck Egg Blue

Fiona

Ennis

Buckaroo

Ingrid

Evans

Everyone Loves a Talking Statue

Louise

Farr

The Pyramid Scheme

Tom

Farrell

Rogue Bees

Tracy

Fells

Heaven

David

Frankel

Words

Jane

Fraser

Night and Day

Helena

Frith Powell

The Orangery

Mark

Gallacher

Broken

Mark

Gallacher

The Sea

Rob

Ganley

Change of Light

Pamela

Gay

The Saved

Sharif

Gemie

WHY I DRIVE ALONE

Jill

Gientzotis

Funeral For a Bird

Hannah

Glickstein

Self-Portrait

Hannah

Glickstein

The Island of Sodor

Kristina

Gorcheva-Newberry

The Last Time I Saw Marion

Joe

Gorman

Pockmarked

Harriet

Grace

And I Hear Him Thinking

Thomas

Graham

Vasily’s Big Break

Patrick

Gray

Nojento

Stephanie

Green

Before He Became Blind to Me

Conor

Griffin

Burial

Kenneth

Gulotta

The Memory Cake

Jill

Hadfield

Hares’ Breath

Nicky

Hallett

Man Bests Fiend

Des

Halpin

Striptease

John

Hargreaves

An Ocean Apart

Steve

Hawes

Old China Hand

Mahito

Henderson

Triptych

Petra

Hilgers

Step Away from the Pizza

Richard

Holeton

The Late Gatz

PETER

HOLLYWOOD

In Miniature

Emily

Howes

In the Time It Takes to Make a Risotto

Mandy

Huggins

Aleksandr

Mandy

Huggins

The Bright Red Beret

Clare

Jacob

The Triple G

Gregory

Jeffers

Crumb trail

Filippa

Johansen

Daisy, Death and the Duckling

Alice

Jolly

Frog Warning

Alice

Jolly

Lest Sleeping Dogs Lie

Marcus

Jones

Nighthawks–Dallas, Texas 1987, 2016

Teddy

Jones

Becoming Whale

Jupiter

Jones

Field of Stars

Pat

Jourdan

Kuhn VS. Kunh

Zeeyoo

Kang

A Touch of Gladness

Cilla

Kent

Lucky

Mary

Kerrigan

Elegy for a Lost Cause

Thomas

Kiernan

The Right to be Forgotten

Anne

Kilminster

The Quilting Group

Sarah

Klenbort

The Hugging Stations

Frances

Knight

Green Room

Carsten

Kok-Hansen

Lillie

Sandy

kundra verma

Coward

Anna

Lamche

The Bavarian Prisoner

Landa wo

Landa wo

The Migratory Journey of the Swallow

Jane

Lavelle

Of Flesh and Bone

John

Lavelle

Child and Family Assessment

Daniel

Leigh

Something Pretty

Colton

Leighton

The Leaving

Carolyn

Lewis

Nudes

Petra

Lindnerová

Lunching Out

Maggie

Ling

In Bed With My Sister

K

Lockwood Jefford

The Etymology of a Sword Swallower

K

Lockwood Jefford

Conditions for an Avalanche

K

Lockwood Jefford

Sky An Iris

Niamh

MacCabe

Connemara Salmon

Kathy

MacGloin

The Goldfish in the Gin

Wah

Mak

Algorithm Rebel

Michael

Males

Mummy’s Girl

Zoe

Manlow

The Atlantic’s Cold Edge

Kieran

Marsh

A Correspondence

Mark

Martin

All the love in her curls

Ira

Mathur

Telogen Effluvium

Eamon

Mc Guinness

Pigeon’s Blood Red

Ken

McBeath

Faithfulness

Patrick

McCusker

Christmas 1960

Eamon

McDonnell

Mary and The Age of My Enlightenment

James

McKenna

The Trial of Mark Rushmore

Alexander

Mckibbin

The Sickness

Alexander

Mckibbin

Visible Radiation

Trisha

McKinney

The Dolphin

Bruce

Meyer

Rest in Peace Francesco Porta

Bruce

Meyer

Crows

David

Micklem

Methane

Pavle

Miha

Longing v. Worth

Douglas

Milliken

Dear Comrade Tito

Tatjana

Mirkov-Popovicki

A Tale from Japanese Mythology: Urashima Meets the Fish-King

Max

Mitchell

The Cloud Collector

Mauricio

Montiel Figueiras

After Ever Happy

Sonya

Moor

Nitrogen Ice Cream

Tom

Moroney

Three oh nine

Laura

Muetzelfeldt

Winter at the Oyster Grill

John

Mulligan

Good water

John

Mulligan

The Nature of the Human

Daniel

Murphy

With Dignity

Nicola

Murray

Greenstick

Emma

Neale

Rick and Molly Drink

Giles

Newington

Alors

Eamon

Nolan

Savage

RJ

Northam

Somewhere in Scoffland

P. B.

Noseby

PERU

David

O Dwyer

A DOG CALLED DOG

Breandan

O’Broin

Tea for Two

Clare

O’Reilly

How to Accept the Lunar Landing

Nicole

Olweean

Why don’t we do it?

Ofir

Oz

The Anniversary

Gordon

Parker

The Orange Story

Nii Ayikwei

Parkes

The Thing is…

Rob

Parkinson

Carry Me

Patrick

Parks

Immergere

Angelina

Parrino

The Favela Samba

Andrew

Peake

The Balance of Things

Hannah

Persaud

Title (to be decided)

Hannah

Persaud

The Coffee Pot

Karen

Peterson

Still Life

Alyson

Porter

The Getaway

Alyson

Porter

Neighbors

James

Prier

Heroes?

Misha

Rai

Roman Numeral Relationships

Rajiv

Ramkhalawan

Robert´s Girlfriend

Dorothy

Reinders

When Seagulls

Hannah

Retallick

Knill Close

Hannah

Retallick

Inhale, Exhale and into Exile

James

Richardson

The Dance

Jjean

Roarty

Almost

Jonathan

Roper

Scars

Iain

Rowan

The Last of the Mohicans

John

Rutter

Her Face in the Darkness

Ronan

Ryan

Passages

Kevin

Sandefur

Half Crocodile

Paul

Saville

Tea with the Queen

Jasmine

Sawers

A Life In Useless Objects

Adrian

Scanlan

Seesaw

Maria

Schrattenholz

Letter to Persephone

Dorothy

Schwarz

Layers

Lindsay

Sears

What Hemingway Banged Off When He Got Back From the Bar

Sheldon

Seigel

The Dance

David

Shewell

The Artist

Mary

Shovelin

Dancing through Time

Pippa

Slattery

Denier

Han

Smith

Noble Rot

Harriet

Springbett

Swimming to Santiago

Cameron

Stewart

Danny’s Birthday

Andrew

Stiggers

Undefeated this Season

Andrew

Stiggers

Afternoon Tea

Caroline

Sutherland

Neelam’s Wedding

Janet

Swinney

Leaving Sydney

Reg

Taylor

Stamp

Sharma

Taylor

Cliff’s Edge for Sale

Sharma

Taylor

Skin

Sophie

Tiefenbacher

Food Chain

Jenny

Toune

Angel – A Bedtime Story

Jenny

Toune

Cat

Jenny

Toune

Mrs Crank’s Niece

Stephen

Tuffin

The Mountains and the Sea

Oliver

Turnbull

Fit

Alice

Walsh

The Good Neighbour

Guy

Ware

Future Perfect: The Burning City

Mike

Wasson

The Pathway

Richard

Watson

Ragdoll

Aisling

Watters

Hope

Aisling

Watters

Lump

Aisling

Watters

The Origin

Tim

Weed

The Fisherman

Chris

Weldon

In the Beginning

Sam

Windrim

My Best Friend Chloe

Bethany

Wren

No Use

Michelle

Wright

Slinky

Michelle

Wright

The Seuss House

Charles

Wyatt

The Owl at the Window

Les

Zig

Fish Anthology 2020

November 9th, 2020 | Uncategorized | Comments Off on Fish Anthology 2020



The Fish Anthology 2020 is now available.


We are delighted to have had the opportunity to publish work from these wonderful writers.

I could see great stretches of imagination. I saw experimentation. I saw novelty with voice and style. I saw sentences that embraced both meaning and music.
~ Colum McCann

Read more about the Anthology, the contents, the authors and extracts.

Books from Fish Writers

November 9th, 2020 | Uncategorized | Comments Off on Books from Fish Writers

 

Don’t Tell the Bees

by Mary-Jane Holmes

A dazzling novella-in-flash, which won first prize in the 2020 Bath Novella in Flash Award judged by Michael Loveday.

A stunning example of what the form can accomplish – Meg Pokrass

Mary-Jane is the Senior Editor at Fish Publishing.  

 

 


The Wolf Road

by Richard Lambert 

A compelling debut by a significant new voice– The Sunday Times Review 

Richard Lambert won the 2019 Fish Short Story Prize with Wakkanai Station.   

 

 

 


The Stromness Dinner

by Peter Benson

Peter Benson’s compelling new novel continues his exploration of unlikely relationships, and paints a vivid picture of a place where all is not what it seems, but might be. 

Peter Benson is a past judge of the Fish Flash Fiction Prize.  

 

 

Against The Wire

Podcast  by Bairbre Flood 

Against The Wire meets Mustapha, an interpreter with Medical Volunteers International; Jameela, a mother trying to bring up her children in the camp; Adrianna, a medic with Boat Refugee Foundation; Ahmad, a photographer with ReFocus Media Labs, and Baqir, a teenager seeking a new life of safety.

Fejira // to cross by Bairbre Flood won the 2019 Fish Short Memoir Prize.

Lockdown – Best Haiku/Senryu

July 2nd, 2020 | Uncategorized | 2 Comments

 

Author
Name
(Alphabetical
order)

 

HAIKU / SENRYU

 

——————————————————————–

Allen

Sunshine brightens the day

By Myra Allen

 

Sunshine brightens the day
Walking lightens the mood
Talking provides solace for the soul

 

——————————————————————–

Askew

American Sentences

By Claire Askew

 

First full day of lockdown

 

Murmuration of late snow: no company here but stove, pines, mountains.

 

I return to the house after a walk

 

The cottage smells of woodsmoke, hard water: stones many times warmed, cooled, warmed.

 

I drive out to buy a paper and whisky

 

The car warms up grudgingly — the wind sings in the burn: oh, so alone.

 

——————————————————————–

Dymock

Hugging is out, they say

by Darryl Dymock

 

Hugging is out, they say

but I can’t keep you

at arm’s length

any more

 

——————————————————————–

 

Gillespie

After the Rain

By Carolyn Gillespie

 

In the crystal balls

On the cow-parsley

The future is upside down.

 

——————————————————————–

 

Greenhaugh

directions for life

by Mike Greenhaugh

 

directions for life:

better two metres apart

than two metres deep

 

——————————————————————–

 

Kennedy

Leaving this lockdown

By James Allan Kennedy

 

Leaving this lockdown

will be as my dentist leaves my teeth:

numbingly well-drilled.

 

——————————————————————–

 

Kennedy

Self-isolation

By James Allan Kennedy

 

Self-isolation

is not a four-letter word.

It’s longer than that.

 

——————————————————————–

 

Kilmartin

A small bird flying

By Margaret Kilmartin

 

A small bird flying

With every silent fast flap

A world of freedom

 

——————————————————————–

 

Krishnan

Goldfish

By Arunh Krishnan

 

Thirty days into isolation,

The goldfish invites me into its humble waters

For a swim.

 

——————————————————————–

 

Kulig

one man’s PPE

By Marek Kulig

 

one man’s PPE

is another man’s

COVID-19

 

——————————————————————–

 

Langan

Alone

by Jane Langan

Ventilator breaths.

No goodbye, alone I go.

Death rattle, a stat.

 

——————————————————————–

 

MacGranaghan

on the edge of town

by Paul MacGranaghan

 

on the edge of town

stand in the silent highway

and behold the stars

 

——————————————————————–

 

MCDONAGH

I am Autumn

by MARTINE MCDONAGH

 

I am autumn, my

leaves are turning. Will you be

here to see them fall?

 

——————————————————————–

 

Nash

Corporate Fallout

by Lee Nash

 

corporate fallout

the merger of Office Wear

and Pyjamas

 

——————————————————————–

 

Pinchuk

Here

by M Pinchuk

 

Wild life radio

seeps in,with abandonment,

overtakes — mesmer-like

 

——————————————————————–

 

Pinoff

Music

By Helen Pinoff

 

Is this how we end?
The birds inherit the earth
Let there be music!

 

——————————————————————–

 

Robertson

Mellow Yellow

By Lynda Robertson

 

buttercups flourish

spread light despite cattle tread

flair of poisoned air

 

——————————————————————–

 

Rowan Murray

Mum Waves

By Sarah Rowan Murray

 

Mum waves from upstairs

rainbows pressed against the glass

distant, safe, alone

 

——————————————————————–

 

Shannon

Haiku

By Mary Shannon

 

Precipitation

rain falling on bog water

concentric circles

 

——————————————————————–

Sullivan

Latency

by Laurence Sullivan

 

prison of pixels –

lag liquifies our language

frozen screens fail us

 

——————————————————————–

Travers

April

By Julia Travers

 

Stretching out

from dry wood,

a new leaf.

 

——————————————————————–

Walker

Together, apart

By Jennie Walker

 

Perhaps now we’ll find

new ways in which to connect –

Though nothing’s like flesh

 

——————————————————————–

Walsh

Haiku

By Jess Walsh

 

I visualise you

Slowly counting every stitch

Unravelling your life

 

——————————————————————–

Weston

Estimating Needs

By Dominic Weston

 

Estimating needs

redistribution of health

us, us, us, or them?

 

——————————————————————–

 

 

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

COPYRIGHT 2016 FISH PUBLISHING