Author
Delighted that ‘The Siren Squad Tries a New Flyer’ was Highly Commended in this June’s Bath Flash Fiction Award — a story about American cheerleaders, electric eels and the cruelty teenage girls can dress up as loyalty, which was such fun (and slightly chilling) to write. It’ll be appearing in a Bath Flash Fiction Anthology,…
Made my whole week to learn that ‘How the Strasbourg Dancing Plague of 1518 Begins’ took First Place in this year’s Micro Madness, National Flash Fiction Day NZ’s daily micro-fiction celebration! Huge thanks to wonderful judges Tim Saunders and Tania Hershman for picking a piece about medieval barmaids, forbidden kisses and a genuinely real historical…
Beyond thrilled to see my story, “The Altar of Saint Cindy,” republished in the brand new Issue Ninety-Two of SmokeLong Quarterly, as the first-place winner of the SmokeLong Workshop Prize! Thanks so much to Vestal Review, where it first appeared, and to SmokeLong for choosing it for the prize and giving it this beautiful new…
So excited that my flash piece ‘Ten Things they Never Told you About Possum’ was shortlisted for the amazing Bath Flash Fiction Award in February 2026 and will be coming out in a Bath Flash Fiction Anthology soon! You can read the full list here.
I’m really excited to see my micro piece On Sunday, you wake up as a Firebird published in the summer edition of The Citron Review. Thanks so much to lovely editor JR Walsh, and to Smokelong Quarterly, where this piece began in the March Micro Marathon ’25, and then ended up winning the ‘up to 250-word…
I was over the moon that The Cincinnati Review published my micro piece The Meat Ration! Thanks so much to editor Kate Jayroe, and especially to Smokelong Quarterly, where this piece began in the March Micro Marathon ’25, and then somehow won the up to 400-word story competition at the end of the wonderfully fun…
It was an honour and an all-round wonderful experience to be asked to judge the Dead Romantic Interviews writing competition for Edge Hill University’s Romantic Lives Conference. There were a lot of terrific entries and it was difficult to choose a winner. You can read the winning entries here. To kick-start the competition, I wrote…
I recently judged a short story competition for Sentinel Literary Quarterly and they have just announced the results. A lot of fantastic stories were submitted. I enjoyed the variety of literary styles and genres represented, ranging from crime fiction to sci-fi to comedy. The six winning stories are very different in style, but they all…
Look out for New Short Story competitions at Sentinel Literary Quarterly, including the African Prisons Project competition judged by Alison Lock and the Quarterly Short Story competition judged by me. SENTINEL NIGERIA ALL-AFRICA SHORT STORY COMPETITION 2013 Closing Date: 28-Feb-2013 Theme: Open Length: 1500 words maximum (Excluding title) Prizes: N35,000 (1st), N20,000 (2nd), N10,000 (3rd), N4000 x 3 (High…
I’m thrilled to be judging the Sentinel Literary Quarterly Short Story Competition, deadline April 2012. Details below – Competition Details Short Stories may be on any subject or style and MUST NOT have been previously published, or posted on a website or blog. Short Stories posted on members-only writing groups for workshop purposes as part of…