Tracy Fells was the 2017 Regional Winner (Europe and Canada) for the Commondwealth Short Story Prize. Her short fiction has been widely published in print journals and online, including Granta and Brittle Star. Her debut novella-in-flash Hairy on the Inside published by Ad Hoc Fiction in 2021, was shortlisted for the Saboteur Awards in 2022 and the International Rubery Book Awards. Her shortstory collection The Naming of Moths was published in 2024 by Fly on the Wall Press.Tracy Fells has been a first reader for the Bath Short Story Award for many years, frequently selecting stories from the entries that go to to be shortlisted or to win a prize

I loved being a first reader and am so excited to now be part of the BSSA team selecting the short listed stories!

I’ve been reading for competitions for quite a number of years and have definitely seen an increase in the quality of writing; the technical craft of short story writers is astonishingly good … which is brilliant news, but often the themes and storylines are becoming mundane and repetitive. For me it’s that “tingle” factor, an immediate sense when you start reading that the author is in control and they’re taking you on a unique journey. If I finish a story and wish that I’d written it, then that’s a stand out for me. It doesn’t have to be a loud story, quiet is good, but it has to make me feel something, it has to resonate emotionally on some level. Make me laugh, cry, shiver with fear or shock, or gasp with surprise. It may explore familiar themes, such as grief/loss/tove, but from a new or unusual angle or viewpoint. When I’m reading for a competition and I recount a story to my OH, then that’s a good story because it stayed with me … and many, many stories just immediately fade after reading.

An example of the former is the winning story from 2024 Bath Short Story Award (by Connor Donahue) – a quiet piece with a growing atmosphere of tension; it left me with questions and a sense of unease that lingered for days. If you can then do get a copy of the 2024 anthology and read it, along with the other winners and shortlisted stories.

Happily, the journey has been only positive with lots of lovely highs and memorable moments. Firstly, having a book launch at a local indie bookshop (the wonderful Steyning Bookshop) where the owners opened up the shop for one evening and I was interviewed by a local writer (and a long-time friend). That was pretty special – to see friends and close family in the audience along with people I didn’t even know, all who’d braved a cold November night just to hear me read. Other highlights have been walking into Waterstones to find my book on display, and learning that the booksellers are always excited for a local author to “pop” in and sign books! And getting a similar tingle of joy upon finding my collection in local libraries. Seeing The Naming of Moths in bookshops and libraries never gets old.

I had a lot of fun writing Hairy On The Inside<, it was definitely a comfort project written during the pandemic (2020-2021) and with the intention of cheering my writing group through those dismal months of Zoom calls. It details the year of 2020 for Chloe and her monstrous housemates as they navigate the constantly changing Covid rules that affected us all in the UK. Chloe is hoping to find true love, but as gay werewolf, who runs a dog-walking business, faces additional challenges as she battles to keep her hairiness (and lunar blood-lust) on the inside. How do the undead cope with digital thermometers, the 2m rule (equivalent to standard coffin length or the average distance a zombie travels in 30 seconds), and a vampire book club that has to meet on Zoom? This novella-in-flash is a funny read with heart-felt messages about the importance of kindness, acceptance, and learning to love yourself.



Thank you for asking! The novel has also been shortlisted elsewhere and is now entered in other competitions so I won’t share its title, but I can say it’s a contemporary Devon-set crime mystery with a strong female lead. I grew up in Plymouth, where the novel is based, and I believe it’s the perfect setting for a series. Like many of my short stories it has dark humour and complex characters. This year I hope to find a home for it and am currently querying agents and publishers, so keep everything crossed for me.

I’ll try to keep this brief because I have a long, long list of favourite short story writers. As a magical realist writer I’m drawn to the uncanny, both Alison MacLeod and Adam Marek skilfully mix the surreal with magical realism and still tell a cracking story. For memorable settings and characters I adore anything by Amanda Huggins (her Japanese themed collection is one of my favourites). For realism I return to Raymond Carver, the quiet writing of Tessa Hadley, and have recently discovered the immersive grittiness of Lucia Berlin. My guilty pleasures are reading collections by more commercially known novelists, such as Kate Atkinson, Rose Tremain, and not forgetting the deliciously dark imaginative stories of Stephen King.

When you have a draft that you’re really happy with then I recommend sharing it with other short fiction writers (maybe a writing group that you know well, and, most importantly, whose opinions you trust) to get constructive feedback. I’ve had many short stories that I believed were polished to perfection and ready to send … only to learn they still needed work, and sometimes you can’t see what needs to be done to finalise a story. In stories I read for competitions the most common problems are where the story starts and ends, and this is something I’ve learned about my own writing from seeking feedback. Many writers believe the reader requires far more introduction to a story than really needed, and the same for endings where a writer continues to over-explain long after what should be the last line. Trust your readers! They can and want to keep up without over-exposition and telling.

Other tips are: always read your work aloud to ensure sentences scan etc., and then use a read aloud feature (Word has this), the voice may be robotic but it will read EXACTLY what you’ve written and this will catch duplicate/missing/incorrect words. And something I wish I’d done on many occasions: email the story to yourself, open and read on screen. I can bet you will spot a howler in your opening paragraph, and possibly other glaring errors on that first page. Good luck!