There are 10 days to go until we announce the winner of this year’s Bristol Short Story Prize and publish our 15th anthology – now available to pre-order from Tangent Books. Here’s more on 10 of the superb writers in the running for the top prize and whose stories will be published in BSSP anthology Volume 15. We’ll introduce the other 10 writers later in this week.
Yanjanani Leya Kalaya Banda is a writer from Malawi. She holds a BA in Study of Women and Gender/Comparative Literature from Smith College in Massachusetts, and finished courses for a Master’s degree in Political Science and Diplomacy from South Korea’s Pusan National University. When not writing, she spends her time dreaming up designs and sewing for her fashion business Yaya’s Reversible Designs; cooking and cleaning; hanging out with her husband; and occasionally curling up on the couch for some Forged In Fire episodes or Track and Field events. Contrary to expectations, she is not athletic.
Leah Carter is a middle-grade and short story writer from Tauranga, New Zealand. Her junior manuscript was shortlisted for the Storylines New Zealand Tom Fitzgibbon Award in 2021. She aspires to seeing her name on the middle-grade shelf in bookstores. Her short stories have been shortlisted (Tasmanian Writers’ Prize, Secret Lives Short Story Competition, An Axe to Grind flash fiction) and longlisted (Flash 500). Leah lives a hybrid existence juggling her day job, teenage dramas, and writing in every spare minute.
Rosie Garland has a passion for language nurtured by public libraries. She writes long and short fiction, poetry and sings with post-punk band The March Violets. Her latest poetry collection What Girls do in the Dark (Nine Arches Press) was shortlisted for the Polari Prize 2021. Her novel The Night Brother (Borough Press) was described by The Times as “a delight… with shades of Angela Carter.” Val McDermid has named her one of the most compelling LGBT+ writers in the UK today. http://www.rosiegarland.com/
Paddy Gillies lives on a farm in a remote reach of Devon. His short fiction has been recognised by the Bridport Prize, the Bath Flash Fiction Award, Reflex Fiction, Cranked Anvil, Flash500 and Retreat West. He is currently working on a novel and a stage play. He is undertaking a master’s degree at Cambridge University.
Lizzie Golds grew up in Ascot, England and now lives in Bristol. Her short stories have previously been published by Dear Damsels, en bloc magazine and mishmashfood.co.uk. She is currently studying part-time for an MA in Creative Writing alongside her day job as a copywriter. You can find her on Instagram and Twitter @lizzie_golds.
Helen Maire Kennedy is a Mancunian writer and playwright currently completing an MA in Creative Writing in Oxford. Her work, Leaving Abhoca, has been performed on stage by the Irish in London theatre (2019) and her short fiction and flash fiction has been shortlisted for the Cambridge prize, for the Flash Flood 2022 New Writers series, and her poetry published in the Under the Sea anthology by Fly on the Wall Press. She is currently working on her debut novel, Blessed Women, and a collection of flash fiction, Manchester Fishing.
Elen Lewis is a writer and English teacher. Following a career as a ghostwriter, when she wrote 20 books she can’t talk about, Elen now teaches at Turing House, a state secondary school. Elen’s poetry has been exhibited at The Welsh National Eisteddfod, The Story Museum and London’s V&A. Elen was born in Llangollen in the foothills of Snowdonia and studied English at Oxford University. Elen lives with her husband, two children and a dog called Bee, in London.
Ananya Mahapatra is an Indian writer. Her short stories and writings have been published in Plethora Blogazine, Women’s Web, Kitaab International, and Hektoen International. Her short story, Confessions of a Neurotypical Mom was published in Twilight’s Children, a collection of stories on disability, by the Indian publishing house Readomania. Her short story, The Bureaucrat’s Wife was amongst the twenty stories shortlisted for the Best Asian Short Stories Anthology 2019, published by Kitaab International, Singapore. She is also a psychiatrist, practising in New Delhi, and is currently working on a collection of short stories based on the lives and longings of people in her home city. She is also the founder of a literary wellness blog thelifesublime.org – a labour of love to bring together her vocation and her love for writing.
David Micklem is a writer and theatre producer. His first novel, The Winter Son, is currently on submission through his agent Robert Caskie. In the last year he’s been published by STORGY Magazine, The Cardiff Review, Lunate, Bandit Fiction and TigerShark Publishing, and was shortlisted for the Fish Short Story Prize and longlisted for the Brick Lane Bookshop and SaveAs International Short Story Prizes. He lives in Brixton, South London.
Kate O’Grady lives in Stroud. Her short stories have been long listed/short listed or placed in Bath Flash Fiction Award, Bath Short Story Award, Reflex Fiction Flash Fiction Competition, The Phare Short Story Competition, Exeter Short Story Competition, Gloucester Writers’ Network Competition, Stroud Book Festival Short Story competition, and published in Storgy Magazine, The Phare Literary Magazine, and Stroud Short Stories Anthology.
Congratulations to the writers, we’re thrilled to be publishing their stories. We’ll be introducing the other 10 shortlisted writers later this week.