It’s the end of July, which means it’s time to announce the shortlist and winners of our 2018 Newcomer Prize for Short Stories.

The quality of the entries this year has been as high as ever, and the judging has been as difficult and exciting a job as ever. The shortlisted writers will all win a three-volume subscription to our anthology series, and the two winners will also receive a cash prize. The two winning stories will appear in an upcoming Fiction Desk anthology.

Let’s start with the shortlist, which this year features nine stories:

• Holly Barratt: ‘Daniel Sprinkles Stars’
• Lahra Crowe: ‘Seelence’
• Becky Docton: ‘Just Breathe’
• Michael Hurst: ‘Speed Awareness’
• Amy Smith Linton: ‘Pete and Jenny at the Starlite’
• Katherine Mezzacappa: ‘Rare Orchid, Late Flowering’
• Russell Reader: ‘The House That Jack Built’
• Poppy Toland: ‘Our Gaff’
• Declan Wilk: ‘Master of Cryptozoology’

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Now for the winners:

In second place, with a £250 prize:

• Poppy Toland: ‘Our Gaff’

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And in first place, with a £500 prize:

• Lahra Crowe: ‘Seelence’

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I’ll be getting in touch with all the above authors to sort out their prizes over the next week or so. In the meantime, thank you again to everybody who took part in this year’s competition.

We aren’t running a writing competition this summer, as we’re turning all our attention to our standard short story submissions, which are open now. If you’re thinking of sending us something, you’ll find the guidelines here, and the submission form here.

It’s time to announce the shortlist and winners of the 2018 Ghost Story Competition. Judging this competition is always a challenge: it brings in some of the best writing we see here at The Fiction Desk. This year we’ve got three prizes: a first prize of £500, and second prize of £250, and a third prize of £100. Those three winners will also be published in our next anthology, while all of the shortlistees will receive a three-volume subscription to our anthology series.

So let’s get on with the shortlist, which this year consists of twelve stories:

• Kris Ashton: ‘Highway Memorials’
• Steve Bilsborough: ‘The Sweet Wrapper Incident’
• Michael Button: ‘A New Beginning in a New Home’
• Bruce Coker: ‘Leggers’
• Anthony Cule: ‘The Glass in the Bathroom’
• Jan Haniff: ‘Widow’
• Chris Hogben: ‘The Star That Stayed Till Morning’
• C B McCall: The Spare Room
• Alice Nuttall: ‘The Flat Above the Joke Shop’
• Rosalie Parker: ‘The Moor’
• A D Stuart: ‘Gnomsense’
• Christopher Williams: ‘The New Normal’

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Now for the winners, in reverse order:

In third place, with a £100 prize:

• Kris Ashton: ‘Highway Memorials’

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In second place, with a £250 prize:

• Chris Hogben: ‘The Star That Stayed Till Morning’

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And in first place, with a £500 prize:

• C B McCall: The Spare Room

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I’ll be getting in touch with the shortlistees and winners over the next week or so to arrange prizes. In the meantime, congratulations to all of the above – and to everybody else who entered the competition and sent in such fine work, making judging the entries an absolute pleasure.

The Ghost Story Competition will return this November. In the meantime, our Newcomer Prize for Short Stories is open now for entries, both supernatural and non-supernatural. Find out more here.

Today we announce the shortlist and the winners of the 2017 Flash Fiction Competition.

First, a quick reminder of the prizes this year: the two runners-up will each receive £100, and the winner of the first prize will receive £300. The three winners will be published in our next anthology, and everybody on the shortlist will also receive a three-volume subscription to our anthology series.

We’ll start with the shortlist. This year it’s ten stories, and here they are in alphabetical order by author name:

• Alastair Chisholm: The Castle
• Steve Clarkson: Excuse Me
• Martin Dufield: In Memorium
• Justina Eckert: Hiding
• Sean Gill: The Computer Man
• Kevlin Henney: On the Science and Complexities of Having Sex in the Family Caravan While One’s Parents Are There
• Lynsey May: Beyond the Body
• Miha Mazzini: Rock’n’Roll Life
• Rachael Swindale: The Orchid
• Jud Widing: Hazards

And now the two runner-up stories:

• Alastair Chisholm: The Castle
• Sean Gill: The Computer Man

And finally, the first prize, which this year goes to:

• Steve Clarkson: Excuse Me

Congratulations to all of the above, and thank you again to everybody who took part in the competition this year.

The three winning stories will be published in our next anthology, which is due in early 2018. I’ll be getting in touch with the winners and all of the shortlistees next week to sort out prizes.

If you missed the flash fiction competition and still want to send us a story, our general submissions system is open now for stories over 1,000 words. Our ghost story competition is also open for entries until the end of January 2018.

It’s time to reveal the winner of the Writers’ Award for our latest anthology, New Ghost Stories III.

The Fiction Desk Writers’ Award isn’t like the other competitions we run from time to time: it’s awarded to the best story in each anthology we publish, and is voted for by the contributors to that anthology. It’s a great way to get the writers’ own view on their peers’ work, and it’s always a close race. There’s also £100 for the winner.

This time around the award goes to Will Dunn, for his story Des Nuits Blanches. Congratulations, Will!

New Ghost Stories III, featuring Will’s story and six other fine tales of the supernatural, is available now in paperback: you can get your copy right here. The 2018 edition of our Ghost Story Competition is open now for entries. See details over in our submission section.

The 2018 edition of the Fiction Desk Ghost Story Competition is now open for entries. This year there’s a first prize of £500, along with second and third prizes. Entry costs £8, and the closing date is Wednesday, 31st January 2018. (The competition closes at midnight UK time, so don’t get caught out if you’re sending an entry from overseas.)

The main page of the competition can be found right here. Full terms of entry can be found at the bottom of our online entry form.

Winners from the last two years appear in our latest anthology, New Ghost Stories III. It’s well worth picking up a copy if you want to see the stories that have been successful in the past – or if you just want a good spooky read to get you through the winter nights…

Copies of our latest anthology are available now. New Ghost Stories III contains seven substantial tales of the supernatural, including the winners of our last two ghost story competitions. The contributors are Amanda Mason, Barney Walsh, Seth Marlin, Jerry Ibbotson, Philippa East, Richard Agemo, and Will Dunn.

If you’re a subscriber or pre-ordered your copy, you should have already received it. If not, you can order your copy now directly from us right here. You can also take out a subscription to include this volume.

It’s time to announce the winners of this year’s Newcomer Prize for Short Stories.

The standard of entries to our competitions is always high. People send in their best work, and judging the entries is as rewarding as it is challenging. Getting the entries down to a shortlist of ten stories was tricky, and picking two winners nearly impossible. But we’re short story publishers: we’re used to doing the impossible.

And so, here are the winners and shortlist of this year’s prize. First, our shortlist of ten stories. All of the writers below will receive a selection of paperback Fiction Desk anthologies through the post:

• Three More Days by Gayle Andrews
• The Bus Stop by Becky Carnaffin
• Uncle Dougie’s Suitcase by Alastair Chisholm
• The Insurance Policy by Christine Grant
• Not Waving, But… by Maureen Hanrahan
• All Washed Up by Chris Hogben
• The Black Squirrel by Christopher Howard
• Tool by Mac McCaskill
• Recalculating Route by Mat Osman
• Not Like Us by Sherri Turner

And now our two winners:

In second place, with a prize of £250:

• All Washed Up by Chris Hogben

In first place, with a prize of £500:

• Uncle Dougie’s Suitcase by Alastair Chisholm

So congratulations to all of the above, and thank you to everybody who took part in the competition. This year’s winners will be appearing in our twelfth anthology, due early in 2018.

The Newcomer Prize will open again for entries next year, but if you fancy trying your hand at very short stories, our flash fiction competition is open now. You’ll find details of that one over in our submissions section.

After taking a break for 2016, we’re delighted to announce that our annual Flash Fiction Competition is back for 2017 — and open now for entries!

This year we have a first prize of £300 and two runner-up prizes of £100. The entry fee for one story is £5, or you can enter two stories together for the special rate of £8.

The deadline is midnight (UK time) on Friday, 29th September. For full details, including our online entry form, head over to our submissions section.

Today I’m very pleased to be announcing the winners and shortlist of our 2017 Ghost Story Competition.

Judging this competition is one of the great pleasures of working with The Fiction Desk, and this year’s entries have been very strong indeed, possibly the strongest to date.

As usual we’ll start with the shortlist. All of these authors will receive a three-volume subscription to our anthology series:

• Richard Agemo: The House Friends
• Jacqueline Burgoyne: Borrowed
• Alastair Chisholm: Exhalation
• Amanda Crum: The Body Farm
• Will Dunn: Des Nuits Blanches
• Philippa East: The Archivist
• Randi Berg Ferstad: Benjamin
• Amanda Mason: When the Dark Comes Down
• Henry Peplow: Take Me Home
• Victoria Richards: The Camera
• Darren Todd: What Meets in the Dark and Rain
• Christopher Youds: The Reclaiming

And now the winners:

• In first place (£500 prize): Will Dunn: Des Nuits Blanches
• In second place (£250 prize): Philippa East: The Archivist
• In third place (£100 prize): Richard Agemo: The House Friends

Congratulations to all of the above writers. Again, it’s been a particularly strong year for entries. We’ll be putting the winners of this year’s competition together with the 2016 winners and a selection of other stories in our next anthology, New Ghost Stories III.

The next edition of our ghost story competition will open for entries in November 2017. Keep an eye on the competition page for more details closer to the time.

It’s time to announce the winner of the Fiction Desk Writer’s Award for our tenth anthology, Separations.

The Writer’s Award is a prize of £100, presented to the author of the best story in each of our anthologies, and voted for by the contributors to that volume. This makes it a genuinely peer-judged prize, and a great way of recognising talent.

Separations featured some tough competition for the award, as it contained some superb work, including two stories by previous winners: S R Mastrantone and Alex Clark. In the end our authors decided that the Writer’s Award should go to Fiction Desk newcomer Hannah Mathewson, for her story ‘Two Pounds, Six Ounces’, which tells of a hospital visitor’s crisis when a power cut knocks out the lights in the building.

Congratulations, Hannah!

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