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We are also delighted to reveal that the Runner-up's for the Short Story Award 2020 are;
Amy Slack - The Company of Mirrors
A writer and editor from the North-East of England who is a graduate of Queen’s University, Belfast. She now lives in London, where she is currently studying part-time for a Creative Writing MA at Birkbeck. Amy’s work has been published by MIROnline, FlashBack Fiction, Honey and Lime, and Milk Candy Review, among others, and she was recently shortlisted for The Cambridge Flash Fiction Prize.
Click here to read Amy's story.
Chris Wright - The Space Above the Wardrobe
From Bangor, Northern Ireland, Chris's short fiction has appeared in The Honest Ulsterman, The Cormorant, Parentheses International Literary Arts Journal, The Wellington Street Review, and many more. In 2020, his work will be featured in several print anthologies, such as Declarations on Freedom—commissioned to celebrate 700 years since the Declaration of Arbroath— The Bramley, the Reflex Press Anthology, and the Write Festival Anthology. In 2019, alongside appearing in dozens of publications, he was highly commended in the Writers’ Forum Short Story Competition, won a place on the Stinging Fly Summer School in Dublin, received a John Hewitt International Bursary, as well as a SIAP Award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.
The shortlist for the Short Story Award 2020 includes;
Conor Crummey - Spring Sounds
A Belfast born academic and writer, who now lives in London, where he lectures at Queen Mary University of London, School of Law. His stories have appeared in The Moth and The Banshee. He was the winner of the Moth Short Story Prize 2019 for his story, 'Journeys'.
Conrad Pollock - Treasure That I Own
Born in 1997, Conrad recently graduated from an English Literature/Creative Writing BA at Bath Spa University and is studying MA Filmmaking at the University of Sussex. Throughout his life he’s written a lot of stories (and actually finished some of them). His inspirations include Kurt Vonnegut, J.G. Ballard and Franz Kafka. He’s currently working with film production company Window-Zebra Productions on several scripted projects, in addition to his first novel.
John Higgins - On Coming to Despise a Literary Idol
A 23-year-old Irish writer, John has a B.A. in English & History. His work has been featured in Honest Ulsterman, New Pop Lit, The Blue Nib & more. He lives in Galway.
A massive congratulations to everyone and a big thank you to everyone who entered this year's competition.
Judge Rachael Kelly has this to say about this year's short story entries:
The quality was so very high that it was an incredibly difficult process to whittle down the shortlist to just 6. I've been telling my students for years that a rejection isn't necessarily a measure of the quality of their writing, but more a function of the fact that publishers/competitions/journals have many more submissions than spaces to publish, and I can absolutely confirm that for this year's Mairtín Crawford Award submissions. There have been entries that missed out on the shortlist by only the very narrowest of margins. It has been a genuine pleasure to read them.
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