Announcement: We’ve added this index of all the contributors to the Willesden Herald short story book series and Story of the Month.
Counting. Over the past sixteen years, Willesden Herald has published 139 short stories by 113 writers from Bosnia, Canada, China, England, India, Nepal, New Zealand, Nigeria, Ireland, Russia, Scotland, Singapore, South Africa, USA and Wales.
Update 1 December: Now available from Book Depository, Amazon UK and Amazon.com.
The Royal Society of Literature’s prestigious V.S. Pritchett Short Story Prize for 2019 has gone to Ursula Brunetti for her story “Beetleboy”. By a happy coincidence, our soon-to-be-published New Short Stories 11 also contains a story by Ursula. 2019 is something of a golden year for writers in New Short Stories, when it comes to winning major prizes. (Ed.)
Contents
Introduction by Gina Challen – vii
JL Bogenschneider – Miss Maughan – 11
Ursula Brunetti – Satellites – 31
Carol Dines – Forgiveness – 47
Derek Dirckx – Dark in Here – 71
Sarah Evans – Only Human – 91
Jeff Ewing – Fireball Outfit – 111
David Frankel – Meadowlands – 125
Ray French – Voyager – 141
N. Jane Kalu – To Have a Ghost Baby – 159
Marylee MacDonald – Caboose – 167
Jaki McCarrick – The Emperor of Russia – 193
Gerard McKeown – Rabbit Season – 211
Jay Merill – Vole or Mole – 223
Diana Powell – The Watcher – 231
John Saul – The garden designer – 241
Notes on Contributors – 257
~
The book is being put together now. One of the next tasks is the cover design, which will be in the hands of Stratos, who has designed all the covers to date. Watch this space for news on the progress of the production and publication. (Ed.)
“The Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award is the richest prize for a single short story in the English language, worth £30,000 to the winner.”
ShortStoryAward.co.uk
London, September 12: Congratulations to Danielle McLaughlin, whose short story collection Dinosaurs on Other Planets is the calling card of a world-class young writer.
We’re well chuffed here because Danielle won the Willesden Herald prize in 2013, as chosen that year by David Means, for “Holidaying with the Megarrys” (New Short Stories 7.)
Earlier this year, we reported on Danielle McLaughlin receiving a Windham-Campbell award for 2019. On a roll!
We are open till September 30 for submissions to the latest in our series of short story anthologies, featuring the best new writing from around the world.
You can find plentiful examples of what we like in our back issues and also in our Story of the Month features, as well as in the periodicals listed under Links. We’re generally looking for literary fiction not genre stories. The only payment we can offer at this time is two copies of the book when it is published. Full details are set out in the submission form.
“Willesden Herald: New Short Stories 11” will be published simultaneously in the US and UK in early 2020 and will be available from the main online booksellers by print on demand. We can also do print runs on favourable terms when bulk orders are requested.
Please follow our New Short Stories blog and The Willesden Herald for updates and features that may be of interest. (Submit)
London, July 2: In that too rare spirit of international cooperation, the team behind the New Short Stories book series is getting together again to create another issue with the best short stories we can find. There won’t be a competition this time, it will be a good old submit/accept/reject process with arbitrary editorial decisions completely unaccountable to the world. Yes, traditional, if you like. Details to follow. (Ed.)
Update: This never happened. Guess why? No letters. Ed.
We don’t have comments under articles here but from now on we encourage you to send us letters on anything you feel might be of interest to our readers. A new page will be dedicated to your letters here and copies or links to them may appear in the Willesden Herald blog. Is this a steam punk innovation in the digital age? Will any letters ever come in? Let’s wait and see. [Ed.]
Email letters to editor@willesdenherald.com.
Oh and you can rest assured there won’t be comments on the letters either, though others might send letters in response.
Announcing a new magazine style feature, “Story of the Month”. There will be a rolling submissions process, with one from the submissions being selected and published each month as story of the month.
No submission fee, a book for recompense, all for love of the short story genre. There are no obligations or restrictions, except for permission to publish on this website. Aside from that, copyright remains entirely with the author.
To ensure quality, and also to make things easier for me, there will not necessarily be a new story every month. It will be treated like a magazine with rolling submissions, no deadline, and stories accepted or rejected ad hoc.
All the details are on the Submittable submissions form. Please read carefully before submitting. Word limit: 1500-4500. Generally literary, not keen on generics. Only one submission at a time, please, and wait for the response to that before making another submission. (Steve)
Updated 9 July 2018
That’s it. In case you are looking for how to submit, the annual competition is now closed. “Stroll around the grounds until you feel at home.” 🙂
Our 2017 judge Lane Ashfeldt says she had a great time reading (and re-reading!) all the shortlisted stories, and choosing the top three was a really tough call. She is delighted to pass on the titles of the ten winning stories selected for the book, which she hopes you will buy, read and enjoy*. And she’s looking forward to finding out who wrote them.
So without further ado, here are the winning entries, runners-up and long-listed in this hotly contested year. Congratulations to all, thanks for these marvellous short stories.
And the one-off Willesden Herald mug inscribed “Willesden Short Story Prize 2017” goes to:
1st Prize (£300) – “Dark Song” by Roberta Dewa
2nd (£200): “Art Zoo” by Paul J. Martin
3rd (£100): “Swimming Lessons” by Douglas Hill
(The remaining seven shortlisted receive £75 each.)
Shortlist
The following will be published in “Willesden Herald: New Short Stories 10”:
A History of Fire by Gerard McKeown
Art Zoo by Paul Martin
Dark Song by Roberta Dewa
Isa’s Pitch by Maureen Cullen
Rictus by Tanvir Bush
Swimming Lessons by Douglas Hill
The Day John Lennon Died by Raphael Falco
The Fish that was not my Pa by Meganrose Weddle
The Quarry by Katherine Davey
Trespass by Roland Miles
Long List
A History of Fire by Gerard McKeown
Air by Angelina Taylor
Art Zoo by Paul Martin
Dancing Her Black Bones Home by Suzanne Conboy-Hill
Dark Rain Falling by Deirdre Shanahan
Dark Song by Roberta Dewa
Isa’s Pitch by Maureen Cullen
Out by the Lough by Sue Lovett
Overnight in the Day Room by Deirdre Shanahan
Reverse Reaction by Anna Glokas
Rictus by Tanvir Bush
Swimming Lessons by Douglas Hill
The Collectors by Michael Antoinetti
The Day John Lennon Died by Raphael Falco
The Fish that was not my Pa by Meganrose Weddle
The Lapidary by Melanie Whipman
The Nationals by Andrew Moffat
The Quarry by Katherine Davey
Trespass by Roland Miles
Winter Kale by Shannon Hopkins
There were 445 entries in total. Thank you to everyone who entered and gave us such delicious torment over the past months trying to see how we could possibly choose between so many fascinating stories.
* Coming soon: Willesden Herald: New Short Stories 10. Watch this space for news on its launch and release.
New Short Stories 