Now launched by Myriad Press, Emily Bullock’s debut novel, ‘The Longest Fight’

A book to buy! The BSSA team is getting one.  And if you’re quick you might win a pre-publication copy. (see below) We love Emily’s compelling short story Zoom, which is published in our 2014 Bath Short Story Award anthology  (Buy now from this site for £5.00)

“Myriad’s first publication of 2015 is Emily Bullock‘s debut novel, The Longest Fight, a beautiful and brutal story set in the gritty world of 1950s boxing. Throughout January, Goodreads are offering readers the chance to win one of ten exclusive, pre-publication copies of the novel. Bestselling Writing magazine has published a profile interview with Emily in their latest issue where she offers her ‘top tips’ for writers and discusses her journey to publication, as well as the challenges of writing her novel as part of her PhD.”

Emily won the 2011 Bristol Short Story Prize with her story My Girl, which was also broadcast on BBC Radio 4. She worked in film before pursuing writing full time. Her memoir piece No One Plays Boxing was shortlisted for the Fish International Publishing Prize 2013 and her short story Zoom was longlisted for our 2014 award.  She also won the National Writers in Education Conference (NAWE) Short Story Competition in 2013. She has a Creative Writing MA from the University of East Anglia and completed her PhD at the Open University, where she also teaches Creative Writing.

It’s so inspiring when authors are successful in several different fictional forms.  In December 2014, we announced that our 2014  second prize winner, Kit de Waal secured a three book deal with Viking beginning with  her novel, ‘My Name is Leon’.

This week, we learned that Anne-Marie Neary, whose short story’ Gon-Do-La’ is also published in our 2014 Bath Short Story Award Anthology, and who read at our 2014 anthology launch at Mr B’s bookshop back in November, has secured a deal with Hutchinson for her novel ‘Siren’, which will be published in spring 2016. Another of her novels will be published in 2017. Senior editor from Hutchinson, Emma Mitchell says of ‘Siren’, ” This brilliant novel grabbed me right from the dramatic opening scene. Anne-Marie is an outstanding story teller and builds the tension, page after page to an an exhilarating denouement. ‘I’m delighted to have her for the Hutchinson list”.

Both Anne-Marie and Kit have  won awards for short and longer fiction and there’s further inspiration  from authors on the Interview page on this site.  We interviewed the wonderful award winning novelist and short story writer Antony Doerr in March 2013. His novel, ‘All the Light We Cannot See’, published in May 2014 in the US,  was an instant New York Times best seller and one of four finalists in the US National Book Awards. It’s one of Jude’s current recommended  novel reads and her interview with Antony Doerr is back at the top of our interview page on this site  There’s some great advice for short story writers in this interview, particularly on final edits.

It’s only the beginning of January and Kit de Waal our second prize winner in the 2014 Bath Short Story Award, who we interviewed last month has won second prize in The Bare Fiction Prize from Bare Fiction Magazine www.barefictionmagazine.co.uk/competitions/results/ for her Flash Fiction story, “I am the Painter’s Daughter”. Anne Corlett, our local prize winner in BSSA 2014, has won third prize in the short story category of the same competition with her story ‘Clay Baby’.  Many congratulations to both writers.   You are an inspiration!

You can buy the 2014 BSSA anthoogy containing the stories by Kit and Anne and  eighteen other winning stories here

The anthologies are also available at Mr B’s Emporium Bath, and Toppings Bookshop Bath. In Bristol they are at Durdham Down Bookshop, North View, Bristol and in Frome they are at Hunting Raven Bookshop.