Farhana Shaikh

Many thanks to Farhana Shaikh for her close reading of all the twenty stories on the BSSA 2023 shortlist and for her thoughtful comments on all the winning pieces.

Farhana’s Comments

As writers, we know what a short story is made up of: character, plot, dialogue, setting, tone, voice and so forth. But for readers, it is always something more than these component parts. It is an escape. It is a pause. It is an experience. A chance to learn. Laugh. Explore.

The writers shortlisted in this year’s Bath Short Story Award have understood this: that each component part must work in harmony, be in service to a story that must entertain.

This didn’t help me when presented with the challenge of picking a winner from 20 outstanding stories because each of them is successful in achieving what it sets out to and therefore worthy of the top prize.

So I approached this task as a reader, not a judge. I took these 20 short works with me on holiday where I read under the scorching sun in thirty five degrees heat. I read and re-read, mulled and meditated, napped and settled on 5 stories. I came home and revisited the list. Here, in the broody will-it-or-won’t-it-rain summer I read all the stories again with a closer eye which only made the task more difficult than it was.

In my selection I have chosen the stories that resonated with me, the ones that having read them for a third or fourth time still surprise me in some way; where I found something beautiful, quiet, raw, that let me forget just for a moment that it was forecast to rain for the whole of next week. So, these are the stories that stuck with me, and didn’t quite let go. When you read them in the 2023 Bath Short Story Anthology, I hope you find as much joy in them as I do. Find out more about the winners on our winners’ post here Continue reading →