Many congratulations to all the writers on our 2024 shortlist. You can read judge Sophie Haydock’s general remarks on the list in her judge’s report. We’re looking forward to seeing all these wonderful stories in print in our 2024 anthology.

Sallie Anderson, shortlisted with ‘Everything is Fine on Co-ordinated Universal Time’ is a bookseller living in Gloucestershire. Her stories have been listed and commended in a number of competitions, published in magazines and anthologies, and performed at events like Stroud Short Stories. She’s easily distracted from her own writing by reading and talking about stories and books.

Lynn Bushell, shortlisted with ‘And Then When The War Was Over‘ started writing as a means of subsidising her work as an artist.Her stories have won prizes in The London Magazine and London Independent Story Prize competitions and reached the finals of the Fish Memoir, ChiplitFest and Yeovil short story competitions and she has twice been longlisted for the Commonwealth Prize. Her novel Painted Ladies (2019 Sandstone Press), about the artist Pierre Bonnard, featured in the Bonnard exhibition At Tate Modern. She lives partly in Suffolk and partly in Normandy, where she has a studio.

Finola Cahill, shortlisted with ‘What Are You After is a writer and musician from Co. Mayo, Ireland. Her poetry has featured in Propel, The London Magazine, the Honest Ulsterman, and others. She was the 2023 winner of the Waterford Poetry Prize and the 2024 winner of the Listowel Writers Week Single Poem Award. She is at work on her debut collection of poems and a longer work of fiction. This is her first fiction publication.

Debra A.Daniel, shortlisted with The House on Datura Street is Once Again For Sale has published two novellas-in-flash, A Family of Great Falls and The Roster (AdHoc Fiction), Woman Commits Suicide in Dishwasher (novel), and two poetry chapbooks, The Downward Turn of August and As Is. She’s a Pushcart and Best Short Fictions nominee. She won The Los Angeles Review short fiction prize, received the SC Arts Commission Poetry Fellowship, the Guy Owen Poetry Prize, and awards from the Poetry Society of SC. Work has been longlisted and shortlisted in many contests and has appeared in: Snow Crow, Legerdemain, LA Review, Smokelong, Kakalak, Inkwell, Southern Poetry Review, Tar River, and others.

Susan Elsley shortlisted with, ‘421 Words for Snow.’ lives in Edinburgh, Scotland and writes short and long fiction with a focus on people and places. Recent work has been published in Crannóg, Paperboats, The Storms, Fictive Dream, Postbox, and Northern Gravy. She won the Ennis Book Club Festival prize in 2024 and was shortlisted for the Alpine Fellowship Writing Award in 2023 and Moniack Mhor’s Emerging Writer Award in 2019. She is chair of a local literacy trust and has a background in human rights.

Emily Devane, shortlisted with ‘Erratics’ 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.

Ingrid Jendrzejewski,shortlisted with ‘As Yet Untitled’ studied creative writing and English Literature at the University of Evansville, then Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge. She currently serves as Co-Director National Flash Fiction Day (UK) and Editor-in-Chief of FlashFlood. She loves shortform writing in all its forms and has won awards such as the A Room of Her Own Foundation’s Orlando Prize for Flash Fiction and the Bath Flash Fiction Award. Her collection Things I Dream About When I’m Not Sleeping was a runner up in Bath Flash Fiction’s first Novella-in-Flash Competition. Find her online at www.ingridj.com and on Twitter @LunchOnTuesday.

Karen Jones shortlisted with ‘Fair Days’ is a flash and short fiction writer from Glasgow. Her story ‘Small Mercies’ was included in Best Small Fictions 2019. She has won 1st prize in Cambridge Flash, Reflex, and Flash 500 and 2nd prize in Fractured Lit’s Micro Fiction Competition. She has been shortlisted for Bath Short Story Award five times. Her first novella-in-flash When It’s Not Called Making Love is published by Ad Hoc Fiction and her ekphrastic novella-in-flash Burn It All Down is published by Arroyo Seco Press. She is an editor for the National Flash Fiction Day Anthology.

Anna Linstrum, shortlisted with ‘Diana Ball’ began acting professionally when she was fourteen before becoming a theatre director in her twenties, working for nearly two decades in new writing and musicals, in the West End and internationally, until a combination of the pandemic and late motherhood shifted her focus to writing. She has since had three plays broadcast on Radio 4, and her fiction has been shortlisted for The Alpine Fellowship Prize, The HG Wells Story Competition, and longlisted for the Fish Publishing prize as well as (twice) for The Bristol Short Story Prize. She is currently writing a stage play.

Emily Macdonald, shortlisted with ‘Ring-Tin Tin’ was born in England but grew up in New Zealand. She lives in London and works in the UK wine trade. She has short stories, flash and micro fiction published in anthologies and online journals such as Fictive Dream, Flash Frontier, Free Flash Fiction, Raw Lit, Roi Fainéant and The Phare. Her collection of driving related stories, Wheel Spin and Traction, was published in November 2023.

Jay McKenzie shortlisted with ‘Jellyfish’ is the author of Mim and Wiggy’s Grand Adventure (Serenade Publishing, 2023). Her work has appeared at or is forthcoming in adda, Unleash, Bath Flash Fiction Anthology, Flash Fiction Magazine, The Ulu Review, Reverie, Roi Faineant and other publications. Winner of the Exeter Story Prize and others, she was shortlisted for the Exeter Novel Prize and the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. She is a nomadic Brit who has lived in Greece, Singapore, Indonesia, South Korea and Australia. She lives with her husband, daughter and too many cardigans. Find her at www.jaymckenzieauthor.com or on Instagram @jay_writes_books

Slawka G. Scarso shortlisted with ‘First Anniversary’ works as a copywriter and translator. Her words have appeared in Gone Lawn, Ghost Parachute, Fractured Lit and Scrawl Place among others. Her debut novella in flash All Their Favourite Stories is available from Ad Hoc Fiction. Two of her stories are featured in the 2023 Best Microfiction Anthology. She lives in Italy. You can find her on X and Instagram as @nanopausa and on http://www.nanopausa.com