Writers’ & Artists’ Short Story Competition 2023: The Longlist

17th April 2023
Blog
3 min read
Edited
27th April 2023

Our 2023 Writers' and Artists' Short Story Competition Longlist is officially out!

The Longlist is Out

Every year Writers & Artists hold a short story competition which is free to enter and offers writers the chance to win great prizes and see their story published on our site. This year all entrants were in with a chance of winning a place on an Arvon Foundation Writing Retreat (worth £850). Arvon host residential writing courses in rural writing houses across the UK. Their courses offer the writers the chance to live alongside fellow writers for a week, and transform their writing through one-to-one tutorials, workshops and the time and space to dedicate to their writing.

To be in with a chance of winning, our 2023 competition called for stories under 2,000 words on the theme of ‘love’.

And today we are really excited to be announcing our longlist. We had over 850 entries and to narrow it down to this list of 16 was an incredibly difficult task. We were so impressed by the standard of writing, the many different approaches to the theme and the creativity apparent in so many of the stories we received. But we had to make our decisions, and here they are!

Congratulations to the following writers:

 

A Co-op Carrier Bag by Tina Parsons

A Hare's Breath by Sarah McCue

A Parcel of Rogues by Kerry Ryan

A Short Trip to Tesco by Shani Akilah

Alphabet spaghetti by Alys Key

Botanophilia by Erin Brady

Comfortable With by S B

Compromise by Natasha Hutcheson

Concrete by Rachel Sambrooks

Of Emptiness and Absence by Samuel Richardson

Caving by Abigail Moss

How to Find Love on the Internet by Dani Glazzard

Madeleine by Sophie Dora Hall

Stained Glass by Amelia Branczik

The Island by Grace Robinson

Would You Still Love Me by Lorna Martin

 

This year’s judge Naomi Booth, author of Animals at Night, Exit Management, Sealed and The Lost Art of Sinking, is now finalising our shortlist and choosing a winner. As we are working to quite a tight timeframe, we will announce the shortlist and also reveal with the winning entry in a single blog post on the site by the end of April.

Once again, many congratulations to those writers who have been longlisted and a thank you to everyone who entered. It has been a pleasure to review your work.

Writing stage

Comments