Ханиф Курейши - Best British Short Stories 2020

Jeff Noon is an award-winning novelist, short story writer and playwright, born in Manchester and now living in Brighton. His first novel, Vurt (1993), won the Arthur C Clark Award. His most recent novels are Slow Motion Ghosts (2019) and Creeping Jenny (2020).

Irenosen Okojie is a Nigerian British writer. Her debut novel, Butterfly Fish, won a Betty Trask award. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Observer , Guardian and Huffington Post among other publications. Her short story collection Speak Gigantular (Jacaranda Books) was shortlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize, the Jhalak Prize and the Saboteur Awards. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Her latest collection of stories, Nudibranch , was longlisted for the Jhalak Prize and one story, ‘Grace Jones’, won the AKO Caine Prize For Fiction.

KJ Orr was born in London. Light Box, her first collection, was shortlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize and the Republic of Consciousness Prize in 2017, and includes ‘Disappearances’, which won the BBC National Short Story Award 2016. Her stories have appeared in publications including the Irish Times, Dublin Review and White Review, and been broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

Bridget Penney was born in Edinburgh and is now based in Brighton. Her book publications are Honeymoon with Death and Other Stories (1991, Polygon), Index (2008, Book Works) and Licorice (2020, Book Works). Stories and non-fiction have appeared in print and online magazines, among them Gorse, Snow lit rev and 3:AM Magazine. She is founder and co-editor of Invisible Books, publishing innovative poetry and prose through the 1990s with occasional manifestations since. Currently she is guest-editor for Book Works’ new series, Intertices.

Diana Powell lives in the far west of Wales. Her short fiction has been published in journals and anthologies such as The Lonely Crowd, Crannog and The Blue Nib . ‘Whale Watching’ was the 2019 ChipLit Festival winner and was runner-up in this year’s Society of Authors ALCS Tom-Gallon Trust Award. Her work has also featured in a number of other competitions, including the 2020 TSS Cambridge short story prize (third place), the 2016 Sean O’Faolain (long-listed), Over-the-Edge New Writer (short-listed), Cinnamon Press Prize (runner-up). Her novella Esther Bligh (Holland House Books) was published in 2018 and her short story collection Trouble Crossing the Bridge (Chaffinch Press) came out in July.

David Rose was born in 1949. After attending a local Grammar, he spent his working life in the Post Office. His debut story was published in the Literary Review in 1989, since when he has appeared in a wide variety of magazines and anthologies. He was co-owner and fiction editor of Main Street Journal. His first novel, Vault, was published in 2011, followed by a collection, Posthumous Stories, in 2013 (both Salt). His second novel, Meridian, appeared in 2015 from Unthank Books. He lives between Richmond and Windsor.

Sarah Schofield’s stories have been published in Lemistry, Bio-Punk, Thought X, Beta Life, Spindles and Conradology (all C omma P ress), Spilling Ink Flash Fiction Anthology and Woman’s Weekly among others. She has been shortlisted for the Bridport and Guardian Travel Writing competitions and won the Orange New Voices Prize, Writer’s Inc and the Calderdale Fiction Prize. She is an Associate Tutor of Creative Writing at Edge Hill University and runs writing courses and workshops in a variety of community settings. She is working on her debut short story collection.

Adrian Slatcher was born in Walsall and lives in Manchester. He writes poetry, fiction and music, and co-edits the poetry magazine/press Some Roast Poet ( someroastpoetry.wordpress.com). His short fiction has previously appeared in Confingo, Unthology and Litro , and in Best British Short Stories 2018. He is currently working on a novel.

NJ Stallard is a short story writer and poet. Her work has been featured in publications including the White Review, Tank and Ambit. She was the winner of the Aleph Writing Prize 2018.

Robert Stone was born in Wolverhampton. He works in a press cuttings agency in London. Before that he was a teacher and then foreman of a London Underground station. He has two children and lives with his partner in Ipswich. He has had stories published in Stand, Panurge, The Write Launch, Eclectica, Wraparound South and Confingo . Micro-stories have been published by Palm-Sized Press, 5x5, Star 82 Review and Clover White.

Stephen Thompson is a novelist, screenwriter and documentary filmmaker. His novels are Toy Soldiers, Missing Joe, Meet Me Under the Westway and No More Heroes . His feature-length TV drama, Sitting in Limbo , about the Windrush Scandal, was screened by the BBC in spring 2020. He is the editor and publisher of the online literary journal, The Colverstone Review .

Zakia Uddin is a writer of fiction and non-fiction. She is currently working on a collection of short stories.

‘Energy Thieves: 5 Dialogues’, copyright © Richard Lawrence Bennett 2019, was first published in Ambit issue 235, and is reprinted by permission of the author.

‘Beyond Criticism’, copyright © Luke Brown 2019, was first published in Mal issue 4, and is reprinted by permission of the author.

‘The Phone Call’, copyright © David Constantine 2019, was first published in The Dressing-Up Box and Other Stories (Comma Press), and is reprinted by permission of the author.

‘Maxine’, copyright © Tim Etchells 2019, was first published in Endland (And Other Stories), and is reprinted by permission of the author.

‘Halloween’, copyright © Nicola Freeman 2019, was first published in Halloween (Nightjar Press), and is reprinted by permission of the author.

‘In the Mountains’, copyright © Amanthi Harris 2019, was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 23 August 2019.

‘The Girl With the Horizontal Walk’, copyright © Andrew Hook 2019, was first published in The Girl With the Horizontal Walk (Salò Press), and is reprinted by permission of the author.

‘Belly’, copyright © Sonia Hope 2019, was first published online in Ellipsis Zine and is reprinted by permission of the author.

‘She Said He Said’, copyright © Hanif Kureishi 2019, was first published in The New Yorker issue 22 July 2019, and is reprinted by permission of the author.

‘Weaning’, copyright © Helen Mort 2019, was first published in The Book of Sheffield (Comma Press) edited by Catherine Taylor, and is reprinted by permission of the author.

‘The Further Dark’, copyright © Jeff Noon Bridget Penney 2019, was first published in The London Reader issue Autumn 2019, ‘Existential Dread in the Digital Void’, and is reprinted by permission of the authors.

‘Nudibranch’, copyright © Irenosen Okojie 2019, was first published in Nudibranch (Dialogue Books), and is reprinted by permission of the author.

‘Backbone’, copyright © KJ Orr 2019, was first published in Mslexia issue 81, and is reprinted by permission of the author.

‘Whale Watching’, copyright © Diana Powell 2019, was first published online on the Chipping Norton Literary Festival website and is reprinted by permission of the author.

‘Greetings From the Fat Man in Postcards’, copyright © David Rose 2019, was first published online in Litro and is reprinted by permission of the author.