H.E. Bates prize
May 8, 2021
My story Saudade got third prize in the H.E.Bates competition – £100. I seem to be doing well lately!
Category: Writing
Stuff I wrote.
Exisle Academy prize
May 4, 2021
Yay! My story ‘Mechanical Jesus’ won first prize in the Exisle Academy competition – US$1,000! It feels great to have an outright win at last!
Broadway Success
April 27, 2021
I got a ‘Highly Commended’ for my story ‘Cheltenham Punk’ in the Julia & Martin Wilson Short Story Prize, part of the Broadway Arts Festival! The story was originally set in Bedford, where I went to school, but it belongs to Cheltenham now…
Cranked Anvil
February 25, 2021
Longlisted in another Cranked Anvil competition! The shortlist and winner won’t be announced until mid-March.
Update: I got to the shortlist but wasn’t placed.
Fiction Factory
January 28, 2021
The results of the Fiction Factory competition are now out, and while I didn’t get placed, my story Garghan House did make the long list! I’m currently getting some kind of recognition for about one in eight of my competition entries, which is encouraging enough to keep me going.
Secret Attic (short)
January 16, 2021
Calvino Prize
January 10, 2021
I was shortlisted for the Calvino Prize! Very gratifying (but dammit, when am I actually going to win something?). This is the competition for pieces that are in the ‘fabulist experimentalist style’ of Italo Calvino – but not merely imitative. I love Calvino, but this seems to me quite a tricky brief, and I was lucky to have some stuff that was not written for the competition but met the terms pretty well. I must admit that my fellow competitors and previous winners seem to have done a pretty good job, with pieces that are recognisably Calvinoesque without verging on pastiche.
Short Circuit #04
November 30, 2020
Short Édition’s latest online anthology Short Circuit 4 is now live, including my story Castrapitheca, City of the Ape.
Cranked
November 28, 2020
I’ve been longlisted in the Cranked Anvil competition! It’s an interesting list because many of the people on it are shown with two, three, or even four entries. I thought I submitted a lot of stuff, but I only put one in for this. I’m not clear about whether the people shown with four entries actually have all four on the longlist (!) or submitted four but may only be listed for one.
I see the competition offered a ‘four entries for the price of three’ deal – perhaps that had something to do with it?
Short Édition
November 20, 2020
My story Castrapitheca has been bought by Short Édition to publish in their unique vending machines! (A big hat-tip to Susan O’Neal for tipping me off about this company.)
These innovative machines are sited on stations, in libraries and elsewhere; at the touch of a button you can print off a story or poem of a selected length. Though new sites are arriving, there are currently only three of them in the UK (Canary Wharf is the closest to me), but there are lots in the USA and in the company’s original home, France.
The stories are also accessible online and mine will also feature in their online quarterly review Short Circuit.
