Congratulations to all our shortlisted writers in the 2026 Award, listed here in alphabetical order. We’re looking forward to seeing their stories in print in our 2026 anthology published at the end of this year. Do read judge Gordon Wise’s comments on this list where he speaks of the quality and the imagination of these writers. There’s a fantastic variety of styles and subject matter.

Nat Baker

Nat Baker shortlisted with her story, ‘All we want is ice cream’ is a writer based in Aotearoa New Zealand, with stories at Newsroom, Turbine | Kapohau, takahe, Headland and others. She won the 2021 takahe Short Story Prize, was shortlisted for the 2022 Sargeson Prize, and received a Surrey Hotel-Newsroom Writers Award in 2023. She is currently querying her first novel. You can read her stories and book reviews at: www.nat-baker.com

Sally Bothroyd

Sally Bothroyd shortlisted with her story, ‘The Snake’, lives in Darwin, Australia. She has worked as a journalist, but prefers to write fiction. Her novel ‘Brunswick Street Blues’ was published by HQAustralia in 2022. Her short fiction has been listed in several competitions in Australia and the UK, and she recently won the Australasian Horror Writers Association short story award. She hopes to one day publish a collection of short stories.

Sam Calcutt, shortlisted with his story, ‘Track’ says: “Most of my stories seem to be about how humans observe, live with and are changed by big infrastructure, like power lines and railways. Firmly believe it’s best out west. Keen to meet other fans of George Borrow.”

Rachel Cameron

Rachel Cameron, shortlisted with her story, ‘Temporary Ghosts’ is a Scottish writer from West Lothian. Her work has previously been published in the Edinburgh Anthology, having been shortlisted for the Edinburgh Short Story Award 2025 and subsequently receiving the Isobel Lodge Award. Her current focus is on writing fiction that explores the everyday through the surreal, taking inspiration from the many ‘what ifs’ of everyday life. In her day job as a librarian, she runs a creative writing group and spends her days happily surrounded by stories in all forms.

Emily Devane

Emily Devane, shortlisted with her story, ‘A Keeper’ is a writer, editor, teacher and bookseller from Ilkley, West Yorkshire. Her short fiction has been widely published in journals such as Smokelong Quarterly, Ambit and The Lonely Crowd. She has won the Bath Flash Fiction Award, a Word Factory Apprenticeship and a Northern Writers’ Award. Emily teaches creative writing workshops (@wordsmoor), co-hosts Word Factory’s Strike! Short Story Club and runs regular spoken word nights.

Anders Larsen by City Headshots Dublin

Anders Larsen. shortlisted with his story, ‘Goodnight Gabriel’,is of Danish-Irish parentage and lives in Dublin – after a lot of bouncing around the place in his younger years.The story ‘Goodnight Gabriel’ emerged as a survivor from a train crash of novel, and he has a disturbingly large amount in common with the main character. Unlike the protagonist, Gabriel though, he hasn’t given up. He’s still working on the novel.

Catherine Leung

Catherine Leung shortlisted with her story, ‘Neighbours You Never Knew’ has also been shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize and has appeared on the époque press é-zine and in the City Lit Between the Lines anthology. As well as writing short fiction, she is a published children’s picture book author and a literary translator from French. Her translations have featured on Asymptote.

Sean McNicholl

Seán McNicholl shortlisted for his story, “Deeper Than It Looks’, is an award-winning writer and GP from Armagh. He is the winner of the Hammond House International Literary Prize, and his work has been shortlisted for the CRAFT Short Fiction Prize, and longlisted for the Bridport Prize, the Fish Prize, the Hope Prize and the Bedford Prize.
His stories have appeared in Epoque Press, The Storms, Fahmidan, ANMLY, Frazzled Lit, and The Belfast Review. He is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee and has been nominated for Best of the Net and Best Microfiction.
Find out more at www.seanmcnicholl.com

Candy Neuberg, shortlisted for her story, ‘To be out there’ has stories which have appeared in London Magazine, New Welsh Review, Virago and History Press collections and several broadcast on Radio 4. She worked for ten years as main reader for the Bridport Prize and Guernsey International Poetry Prize. She lives partly in the UK and mostly in South Africa.

Ajayy Pattanshetty

Ajayy Pattanshetty shortlisted with his story, ‘Pronouncement’ is a writer of Konkani heritage based in London. His fiction explores inheritance, migration and loss, often through a single domestic object or gesture. His story ‘Time Ravels’ was published by Fiction on the Web in May 2026 and selected as the editor’s Pick of the Month. He is currently writing his first novel, The Good Hand.More at ajayypattanshetty.com.

Sean Rennie

Sam Rennie, shortlisted for his story, ‘Recommendations’ has been been featured in Harper’s Bazaar and Sonder. He won the Oxford Flash Fiction New Voice Award, and was longlisted for the Writers’ & Artists’ Short Story Competition, the WestWord Prize, and the Anthology Flash Fiction Competition. Sam studied novel-writing at Bath Spa University and is from a small town in Essex where the roads are named after The Lord of the Rings — he grew up on Gandalf’s Ride, a stone’s throw from Hobbiton Hill and Rivendale Vale. He is currently working on his debut novel and he can be found on Twitter and Instagram as @samcsrennie.

Sean Robinson

Sean Robinson shortlisted with his story, Output Variance’ lives in Caerphilly, Wales, with his wife, two children, a lurcher, and two cats. By day he leads engineering teams; by evening he can usually be found foraging in the woods, restoring something in the workshop, or volunteering as a Scout leader. He collects fountain pens with more enthusiasm than his handwriting really justifies. This is his first short story to see print.

R J Slade

R. J. Slade, shortlisted with her story ‘Obliquity’, is from South Wales. Since completing her BSc in Psychology at the University of Bath, she has been balancing the woes of job hunting with the woes of writing. Comparatively, she finds much joy in music and movies, especially horror. This will be her first published story.

Jennifer Walne

Jennifer Walne shortlisted with her story, ‘These are all great incenlives for your kids’ lives in Cambridgeshire and graduated with first class honours in Writing and English literature. She and her husband spent years battling through the UK visa applications and are finally enjoying the luxury of simply living together. She works part time on the activities team in a care home and is currently preparing to take the Grade 6 piano exam. Jennifer has been published in Popshot Quarterly and The Perito Prize Anthology among others.

Thank you very much to our judge, Gordon Wise for judging our 2026 Award short list and for his detailed and insightful comments on the winners and his general comments on the short list. Gordon kindly donated his fee to The Book Trust.

Judge’s Comments

This is a supremely accomplished selection of short stories. I think they define our age, for the full spectrum of human (and some non-human) life, death, afterlife – and humans’ interaction with what we may pretend is life – is here. Each has a sense of poise, many are supremely resolved pieces of storytelling. I read them anonymised, and in alphabetical order, and with almost each one I found myself saying, ‘could this be the winner?’. I began on the veldt, went to the Lakes, floated (or maybe sank) in pools and seas, felt the earth shake, saw and felt extraordinary things in ordinary neighbourhoods, found myself making life decisions along with characters and trying to fathom relationships as those characters did themselves. Words leapt off each story’s page as well as words and stories leaping out as being the very subjects of some of the stories themselves.

HIGHLY COMMENDED
Three stories outside my top three kept living with me after I had read them. But I finally landed on two I would love to recommend in particular.

‘A Legacy of Tea Coasters’ is an atmospheric meditation on how to do honour to an elder, navigated around the very practical matter of preparing for a death. The fact that life ends is the very definition of being alive. But when it does, how can that help define who we were?

‘Only the Doors’ reflects the consciousness of a house. And not just a house, but a bungalow, with a corridor of secrets, mysteries or doubts. It’s clever, and poignant.

TOP 3
These three very different tales – and approaches to storytelling – exemplify what is great about the form and this competition.

Third Prize: ‘Afloat­’ is a surrealistic micro-odyssey that remains completely grounded in its observations. Its hero progressively shakes off the ties (and literally a tie, at one point) that bind him. Business cards, those talismans of a certain kind of corporate life, are cast across an ocean. Eventually we and he find safe harbour. There is great imagination, focus and consolation in play here.

Second Prize: ‘Letholigica — On the Removal of Words’ is a beautifully conceived memento mori for our age. If language becomes homogenised for the purposes of efficiency, how can we express ourselves any more? Can we truly live, without self-expression? And who or what decides what we can use to say things? A truly splendid skewering of a dystopia, told in miniature. (All words that aren’t yet proscribed…)

First Prize: ‘The Wedding Guest’ is compositionally and emotionally brilliant. If I analyse it, I fear I will spoil if for you. To write in the future tense but (spoiler alert) to write in reverse chronology too is an acrobatic writerly feat not for the fainthearted. But to use this to tell a love story, or indeed (again, spoiler alert) a lack of love story, shows particular accomplishment. And to be emotionally true, not to mention funny and surprising, to boot, is a rare gift.

Thank you to everyone from around the world, who has entered our 2026 Award so far.
It closes at midnight BST on Monday 27th April. You still have time to write or refine a short story!

Here are a few reminders:

The fee is £9.00 per entry

£1750 prize pot, including a prize for an unpublished writer of fiction and a local prize.

2200 word limit

The stories can be on any subject. But we have fewer hopeful or funny stories and it is always great to read those too. We accept simultaneous submissions. Let us know asap if you are accepted elsewhere.

Our shortlist judge is Gordon Wise of Curtis Brown literary agency

Results are out by the beginning August and shortlisted authors are offered publication in our 2026 BSSA anthology.

Before you submit, check the rules and send your stories to the email address on the entry page (Some have been arriving at the wrong email address). Remember the word limit of 2200 (we have received stories much longer than this) and don’t add any identifying marks on your stories.

Thank you and good luck!

BSSA team
April 20th 2026

Here’s a post from team member, Jude’s archives for any weekend writers refining a short story for our 2026 Award, which ends on Monday April 27th, in just over two weeks time. Can you make your short story stand out by its particulars? (And if you are entering, remember to check the rules. Our readers tell us that several stories are well over the limit of 2200 words. And do send to the email address on the entry page. Thanks everyone)

Back to particulars…

In estate-agent speak, ‘the particulars’ of properties for sale or rent are anything but particular. ‘Compact’, means a flat the size of a cupboard, ‘deceptively spacious’, means there may be a cupboard in the flat somewhere.

At the wonderful Stinging Fly summer workshop I attended in Dublin some years ago, we were given an article by tutor, Sean O’Reilly, during a session on the use of detail. I don’t know who wrote the piece, but the author says “it’s not just detail that distinguishes good writing (fiction or non-fiction) ; it is detail that individualises. I call it particularity. Once you’re used to spotting it–and spotting its absence–you will have the best possible means of improving your writing markedly.” There’s some great examples of particularity in this article – for example, the first line of Graham Green’s The Heart of the Matter.

“Wilson sat on the balcony of the Bedford Hotel with his bald pink knees thrust against the iron work”.

The author of the article points out that if the words ‘bald pink knees’ were removed, the sentence would be ordinary, not memorable. Those three words do a great deal to suggest character and bring the other details into focus. It’s a brilliant example of how to begin a novel or short story.

I’ve been reading and enjoying Alison Moore’s story collection, The Pre-War House. She often particularises characters by their actions. I like this example from the story ‘Over night stop’. The protaganist is a woman going on her honeymoon. The plane is delayed and she and her new husband are put up in a hotel. Alone in the hotel bar, she suddenly recognises someone – a man from her past, called Stanley.

“She shared a house with a friend of his and never knew if she would return from work to find Stanley on the sofa, drinking milk from the carton, resting it between his thighs after swigs, looking at her in her uniform and saying, ‘Hello nursey.’”

For me, there’s something about Stanley swigging the milk, resting the carton between his thighs then saying ‘Hello nursey’, that makes him distinctively creepy. Without Alison writing anything else, I imagine Stanley has a mustache of milk, can see the beige of his trousers, hear the wheedling tone of his voice. This story gets much more creepy – it’s very good. I recommend reading it and the rest of the collection.

Jude, April 11th 2026

Time is running out. It’s just under four weeks until we close – on Monday, April 27th. But there’s still time to write a story from scratch, redraft, edit and do the final tweaks. BSSA has a limit of 2,200 words but whatever the length, the start of a a story is vital in grabbling attention and setting the pace for what’s to follow.

From our archives here are some of our favourite writers on BEGINNINGS

2022 BSSA Judge, author and writing teacher Paul McVeigh had this to say:

Beginnings are very important. Talking specifically from the point of view of judging competitions and reading stories in an endless feast …, I find beginnings are crucial to keep me reading. For these platforms (which I don’t think have to apply to stories in a collection), one way to get my attention is to see the first page as pulling the ring from the grenade. I will read to see if it goes off – I assume it will and cause the maximum amount of damage possible. If that grenade doesn’t go off and you’ve written an end I believe in and welcome, then I will tip my hat to you. I will also be a bit jealous.

Prize-winning author Colin Barrett winner of the Guardian First Book prize in 2014 for his brilliant short story collection, Young Skins says this :

Try to make something interesting happen as near to the opening as you can. Now this doesn’t have to be some showy eruption of plot or an aphoristic nugget of an opening line, though it may well be; it might just be the deployment of an unobvious adjective or unexpected detail seamed somewhere into your opening paragraphs. A nuanced little observation or moment, carefully placed. If you can get a small moment right near the start it sends a signal to the reader that you can trust me, you can keep reading. There’s nowhere to hide with short stories, if it’s five or ten pages long it’s got to start well, do well in the middle, and end well. No point saying it gets good half way through.

What about ENDINGS? Award-winning short story writer and novelist, Danielle McLaughlin says this:

As for endings: stop in the right place. Easier said than done, I know, but a short story can be ruined if the writer insists on carrying on past the ending. “… already in that space the light begins to fade into the calm gray even light of the novelist.” That quote is from a paragraph in The Lonely Voice where Frank O’ Connor is discussing an aspect of the work of Mary Lavin, and, whether or not you agree with his assessment of Lavin’s work, the analogy of the fading of light is a good way of explaining the loss of intensity, the loss of explosiveness, that can occur when a short story continues on further than it should.

And then there are the finishing touches …

On finding the right TITLE

Short story writer and poet, Tania Hershman has this important advice on titles:

You want your work to stand out from the beginning in the huge pile that the judge has in front of him or her, and a good title will do that better than a quirky font or odd layout (avoid those). If a judge has ten stories called “The Visit” or “The Day it All Changed”, he or she might be rather jaded by the time it comes to the 10th. But don’t make your title too interesting or creative if your story can’t live up to it – make sure it does!

The best single comment on a title comes from acclaimed short story writer Tessa Hadley, who we interviewed in 2013:

‘A title clinches something, it crisps the story up and seals it like a top on a bottle.’

Do also read the writing advice from this year’s judge, Gordon Wise.

We look forward to reading your stories and thank you to all who have entered so far

Last night we held an online launch for our 2025 anthology and were thrilled that 13 of our authors were able to  be with us to read extracts from their stories. In between the readings we held brief breakout groups so the authors could meet and chat about, among other things, how they worked and future projects.

Authors present were: Cleo Heywood, Jay McKenzie, Zuzu Cole, Joanna Campbell, Steve Mellen, Gio Iozzi, Kathryn Inns, Lauren Collett, Rosaleen Lynch, Amy Stewart, Ella Plevin, Morwenna Lawson and, joining us from Brazil, Malina Douglas.

Our 2026 award ends in 5 weeks on Monday, April 27th. We welcome stories from any genre and in any form/style of up to 2200 words. Prizes are £1200 (1st), £300 ( 2nd), £100 ( 3rd) with the Acorn Award for an Unpublished Writer of Fiction and a Local Prize sponsored by Mr B’s Emporium of Books. Our judge is literary agent Gordon Wise from Curtis Brown.  Time to get writing! Copies of the anthology are available from adhocfiction.com and in paperback from Amazon 

Would you like to come to hear winning and shortlisted writers from our 2025 Award read extracts from their stories this Wednesday, 25th March? We have a Zoom event from 7.30 pm to 9.30n pm, London Time.

It’s a chance to get a sense of the range of styles and themes of the stories and maybe be inspired to enter our 2026 Award, which closes on Monday April 27th. £1200 top prize.

Contact us at bathshortstoryaward(at)gmail(dot) com. for a zoom link asap if you would like to attend.

The 2025 Anthology is available for sale from adhocfiction.com and on Amazon