We are pleased and excited to announce that novelist and short story writer Jarred McGinnis has agreed to judge the Willesden Herald Short Story Competition 2022. An American abroad, his debut novel The Coward (Canongate, 2021) was a BBC Radio 2 Book Club recommendation. It is also about to be published in the US and in France, Italy and Spain later this year. He has many strings to his bow, including short fiction for BBC Radio 4 and much more besides, which you can read all about on his website. He is no stranger to our competition, having had a short story in New Short Stories 4. [Ed.]
We’re back with a competition for inclusion in Willesden Herald: New Short Stories 12. Open to international entries. Closing date will be August 31, 2022. Entry fee £5. There are ten prizes, as follows:
Meet our next fab shortlisted writer, Jo Lloyd. You can follow the link to read an interview with Jo and a short story Ade, Cindy, Kurt and Me from her brilliant collection The Earth, Thy Great Exchequer, Ready Lies https://t.co/0J1nxtY49Cpic.twitter.com/Q6uzyr3Nz3
(It’s always gratifying to see a mention for our own short story competition. Ed.) Full shortlist and selected stories online: Announcement – 2021 Edge Hill Shortlist.
Hello! I’ve been asked to do a short thread with some of my stories available to read online so here goes! “All the People Were Mean and Bad” is here: https://t.co/ocxW76NA2D
Twitter: Lucy Caldwell shares links to some of her stories online
Three-time nominated Lucy Caldwell has won the sixteenth BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University (NSSA) with ‘All the People Were Mean and Bad’, a story taken from her 2021 collection, Intimacies. The news was announced live on BBC Front Row by 2021 Chair of Judges, James Runcie. Caldwell, a multi-award-winning writer from Belfast, was previously shortlisted in 2012 and 2019.
Congratulations to David Butler on winning this competition, which is part of the Omagh Literary Festival, and named in honour of the great Irish short story writer Benedict Kiely. It’s always gratifying to see past contributors making more waves. (Ed.)
The Caine Prize for African Writing is one of the world’s major short story prizes. The prize is for a published short story, between 3,000 and 10,000 words, by an African writer.
Announcing the Society of Authors' Awards shortlists – 29 writers and illustrators shortlisted for £100,000 prize fund, including our inaugural children's illustrated book prize! > https://t.co/xeh4Es3iVt#SoAwards
It is gratifying to see two former Willesden Herald New Short Stories contributors, namely Carol Farrelly and Diana Powell, short-listed for this year’s ALCS Tom Gallon award for a short story.
“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” ()
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)
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.
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.
New Short Stories 