“Each year, Prospect partners with the Royal Society of Literature to award a fiction writer working in short stories. This year’s winner Ursula Brunetti weaves a tale about an unlikely friendship” ()
Prospect Magazine
Before Beetleboy came Satellites by Ursula Brunetti in New Short Stories 11
November 11: V.S. Pritchett Short Story Prize 2019 goes to Ursula Brunetti for “Beetleboy”.
October 2: BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University 2019: “The Invisible” by Jo Lloyd
September 27: Out Now: “The False River” short story collection by Nick Holdstock
September 20: Double chapbook launch. “Past contributors to WH New Short Stories, Brian Kirk and Jill Widner, enjoyed a double win at the Cork International Short Story Festival 2019.” (See also Feb. 15)
September 12: Danielle McLaughlin takes The Times/ Audible Short Story Award 2019
August 24: Book launch: “Like Water and Other Stories” by Olga Zilberbourg
July 3: Book launch: “Chalk Tracks” by Gina Challen, twice contributor to New Short Stories
March 13: Danielle McLaughlin receives Windham-Campbell award
Feb 15: Friends of Willesden Herald take both Southword fiction chapbook awards 2019
Willesden Herald New Short Stories 11 is available from Book Depository, Amazon (UK), Amazon.com and other booksellers. Link: More details including author pictures and profiles.
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.)
“WELSH WRITER JO LLOYD WINS THE 2019 BBC NATIONAL SHORT STORY AWARD WITH ‘TIMELESS’ AND ‘DEEPLY TENDER’ STORY INFLUENCED BY BREXIT, SOCIAL DIVISION AND FOLKLORE” (BBC Radio 4)
“Welsh writer Jo Lloyd has won the fourteenth BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University 2019 (NSSA) for ‘The Invisible’, a distinctive and compellingly original story. Inspired by the life of an 18th Century woman from Carnarvonshire called Martha who claimed to be friends with an invisible family living in an invisible mansion, Lloyd discovered her story by chance in the online Dictionary of Welsh Biography. Set in a close-knit community, the story is both timeless and universal, and resonates profoundly in an age where fear of outsiders and social division is rife.”
Listen: Aimee-Ffion Edwards reads “Jo Lloyd’s hypnotic tale about the fantasies people embrace to make life bearable” The Invisible by Jo Lloyd.
Read: “Welsh writer takes £15,000 prize for The Invisible, based on a real 18th-century woman who spread tales in her village” Guardian report including the text of the short story.
Interview: Jo Lloyd on Winning the 2019 BBC National Short Story Award (Wasafiri)
This news continues a series of successes this year by previous Willesden international short story prize winners. Jo Lloyd won the Willesden in 2009 with her story “Work”, which you can read in New Short Stories 3.
As we previously reported, past contributors to WH New Short Stories, Brian Kirk and Jill Widner, enjoyed a double win at the Cork International Short Story Festival 2019. The garlanded stories are set to be launched in chapbook form at 2:30 p.m. on Thursday, September 26th at Cork City Library.
Deep Heart by Kandace Siobhan Walker beat almost 200 others to win the £1,000 award set up by the Guardian and 4th Estate in 2015. The Guardian report describes the story as “a poignant exploration of kinship and community.”
“We are always barefoot. I try to explain this to the police officers who arrive from the mainland. We’re quieter this way and we need to be quiet when we’re stalking wild animals in the pine forest. …”
Read “Deep Heart” by Kandace Siobhan Walker in full in Guardian Online.
“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!
