Short Story - In alphabetical order

Winner: Lucy Beevor 

Lucy lives and works in Belfast. In 2019 she received a Support for the Individual Artist Programme award from Arts Council NI. In 2018/19 she was an X:Borders participant with the Irish Writers Centre and a finalist for the Michael McLaverty Short Story Award. Her writing has also been short-listed for the Mairtín Crawford Award for Short Story 2019, the John O’Connor Short Story Prize 2018 and the Bath Flash Fiction Award. In 2016 she co-conceived and curated with poet Thérèse Kieran ‘Death Box’, an exhibition of poetry and prose at Crescent Arts Centre. 

1st Runner Up: Laura Theis

Laura grew up in Germany, moved to the UK a decade ago, and writes poems, stories and songs in her second language. She is the author of 'how to extricate yourself' (Dempsey&Windle) which was selected as the winner of the 2020 Brian Dempsey Memorial Pamphlet Prize. She earned a MSt (Distinction) in Creative Writing from Oxford University. Her work has been widely anthologised, appears in journals such as Rattle, Strange Horizons and Mslexia, and was published in the UK, Ireland, Belgium, Germany, Canada and the U.S.  An AM Heath Prize recipient, she has also won the Hammond House International Literary Award and the Mogford Short Story Prize judged by Prue Leith and Stephen Fry. She was highly commended for the Acumen Poetry Prize as well as a finalist in over twenty other international literary competitions. Most recently, she was longlisted for the Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize and the UK National Poetry Competition. 

2nd Runner Up: Vijay Khurana

Vijay worked for several years as a radio broadcaster and journalist before leaving to spend more time writing fiction. His stories have been shortlisted for numerous prizes, including the 2021 Cúirt New Writing Prize, the 2020 Short Fiction/University of Essex prize, the 2019-2020 Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize, and the 2019 Bath Short Story Award. He has fiction forthcoming in the journal NOON, edited by Diane Williams. He also published a children’s chapter book, Regal Beagle, in 2014. He lives in Berlin.

Amy Stewart completed an MA in Creative Writing at York St John in 2019, and is currently studying for a PhD at the University of Sheffield centred around female circus artists and the carnivalesque. Amy’s work can be found in The York Journal, Aurora Journal, Bandit Fiction and Ellipsis Zine, as well as the upcoming Test Signal anthology from Bloomsbury and DeadInk Books (July 2021). She also received a Highly Commended Award in the 2019 Bridport Prize for her short story, ‘Wolf Women’, judged by Kirsty Logan. Amy lives in York with her fiancé and their rescue dog. 

Sabine Casparie is an art historian specialised in contemporary art. She leads art tours in London and teaches art history, working in partnerships with schools and mental health charities. She also writes a blog on contemporary art and how it affects our daily lives. (https://www.sabinecasparie.com/). Sabine started taking writing classes two years ago and is currently working on a memoir that explores the intersection of art and mental illness in her own life. Originally from the Netherlands, Sabine lives in London with her husband and two children. She no longer believes that depression is ‘the black dog’ – two years ago her family adopted a bubbly, black Cocker Spaniel who is the opposite of depressed.  

Susan Lanigan is the author of White Feathers (2014) and her story “Ward 7” has featured in anthology To Shape the Dark (ed. Andreadis 2016.) Thrice shortlisted for the Hennessy New Irish Writing Award, her stories have also featured in Southword, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and Nature Magazine. She wrote “The Defamation Suit” to draw attention to an unjust law. Susan is a full-time software developer and lives by the sea in Co Cork. www.susanlanigan.com  

Poetry Award - In alphabetical order

Winner: Luke Allan

Luke is a poetry editor at Partus Press and co-editor of the magazines Pain and Oxford Poetry. He studied literature and creative writing at UEA and Oxford and is former managing editor at Carcanet Press and PN Review. His poems are published in the TLS, The White Review, and The Poetry Review.

1st Runner Up: Maeve Henry 

Maeve was born in Dublin, grew up in the north-east of England and now lives in Oxford. She has a Masters in Creative Writing from Oxford Brookes University. Her poetry has been published in various anthologies and magazines. She was shortlisted for the Bridport Prize in 2020 and the Brotherton Prize in 2019. Her first poetry pamphlet, The Reasons why We Left, is forthcoming in autumn 2021 with Frosted Fire Firsts. Her YA novels from decades ago are still available on Amazon. She is married with three grown up children and works in hospital administration.

2nd Runner Up: Laura Theis

Laura grew up in Germany, moved to the UK a decade ago, and writes poems, stories and songs in her second language. She is the author of 'how to extricate yourself' (Dempsey&Windle) which was selected as the winner of the 2020 Brian Dempsey Memorial Pamphlet Prize. She earned a MSt (Distinction) in Creative Writing from Oxford University. Her work has been widely anthologised, appears in journals such as Rattle, Strange Horizons and Mslexia, and was published in the UK, Ireland, Belgium, Germany, Canada and the U.S.  An AM Heath Prize recipient, she has also won the Hammond House International Literary Award and the Mogford Short Story Prize judged by Prue Leith and Stephen Fry. She was highly commended for the Acumen Poetry Prize as well as a finalist in over twenty other international literary competitions. Most recently, she was longlisted for the Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize and the UK National Poetry Competition. 

Emilie Cavendish is a former UN political affairs officer and researcher. Through travels across Latin America, Russia, Haiti, Afghanistan, Myanmar and West Africa, as well as a childhood in France, she has always kept a record of life around her – memories of cooking dumplings in her Czech grandmother's farmhouse kitchen, mid-winter swimming at dawn in Moscow, talking with tribal elders in remote Afghan outposts. She began writing poetry in 2020.

Erica Jane Morris grew up in the South of England, studied Psychology at the University of Sussex and gained her doctorate at The Open University. She has lived in Milton Keynes for around 25 years, working at the Higher Education Academy, The Open University and Anglia Ruskin University. In 2019, she completed an MA in Writing Poetry at the University of Newcastle and The Poetry School, London. She was a finalist in the Mslexia Poetry Competition 2021 and shortlisted for the Bridport Prize 2020. Her work has recently been published in Channel, Lunate and The High Window. She also works in higher education, specialising in academic integrity, assessment and degree standards. 

Eugene O’Hare is an actor and playwright. He was born in Newry, County Down. He is working towards his first collection of poetry. Recent poems have appeared in The Galway Review and as a news piece in The Irish News. New poems will feature this summer in magazines such as Crossways and under Anne Devlin's literary editorship at Fortnight.