Short list for the Willesden short story prize 2011

UPDATE: Results announced

Congratulations to the writers listed below and to everyone who entered. It was a pleasure and a privilege to read each lovingly and painstakingly crafted short story. Deciding which ones to short-list was far from easy.

Short list for the Willesden Herald short story prize 2011

"Apartment" by Y.J. Zhu
"Blue Raincoat" by Teresa Stenson
"Dancing with the Flag Man" by Nemone Thornes
"Gusul" by Adnan Mahmutovic
"Homecoming" by Alex Barr
"Out of Season" by Mary O'Shea
"Overnight Miracles" by A.J. Ashworth
"Set Dance" by Angela Sherlock
"The Bedroom" by Micheal Coleman
"The Place" by David Frankel
"Thingummy Wotsit" by Adrian Sells
"Victor" by Emma Martin

About the writers

A. J. Ashworth was born and brought up in Lancashire and is a former journalist who now works in publishing. She has an MA in Writing (distinction) from Sheffield Hallam University and her stories are published or forthcoming in Horizon Review, Tears in the Fence, Crannóg, The Yellow Room, Lablit and the Voices anthology.

Alex Barr's short stories have been broadcast on radio 4 and have appeared in magazines such as STAND. He has published two poetry collections, LETTING IN THE CARNIVAL (Peterloo 1984) and HENRY'S BRIDGE (Starborn 2006) and won third prize in the National Poetry Competition 2000. He is currently collaborating with Peter Oram on a translation of RILKE'S French poem sequence VERGERS and a series of books for children. He has worked as a journalist, architect and lecturer, and now lives on a small holding in West Wales with his wife Rosemarie, a ceramic artist.

Michael Coleman is a 60 year old Archive Conservator from Belfast. He has 3 children, 3 grandchildren and has been besotted, and sometimes dumbfounded, by his wife Patricia for the past 42 years. He loves sailing and jumping in puddles. He writes short stories, poetry and has a completed novel for teenagers waiting on a publisher.

David Frankel was born in Salford, but can now be found lurking around the darker corners of Kent, where he lives and works as an artist. He has been a secret writer most of his life, and is now working on the final stages of his first novel and a collection of short stories. He won the Earlyworks short story prize in 2009.

Adnan Mahmutovic is a Bosnian Swede, a homely exile who teaches literature at Stockholm University in daytime, and works with people with mental disorders at night. His book Thinner than a Hair came out in 2010 as the winner the Cinnamon Press first novel competition. His short stories have appeared in Stand, The Battered Suitcase, Rose&Thorn Journal, Cantaraville, SNR, and anthologised in [Refuge]e (Konstafack), and We’re Créme de la Crem (Biscuit publ). (www.adnanmahmutovic.com)

Emma Martin lives in Wellington, New Zealand, arguably the windiest city in the world. She has an MA in Creative Writing from the Victoria University of Wellington. In previous lives she has been a taxi driver, circus worker and film censor.

Adrian Sells is married with a young daughter and lives in London. As a global markets strategist, his only published works to date have been in the financial press. He read English at Cambridge and, after many years recovering from the experience, now writes in his spare time. He has completed numerous short stories and is currently seeking representation for his second novel, a thriller set in South London called "Thirteen Days in Winter". Away from work and writing, he loves opera (twice a judge on the Olivier Awards opera panel) and the theatre. ‘Thingummy Wotsit’ will be his first published work of fiction.

Mary O'Shea's ambition to have an ordinary life sprang, more or less directly, from one summer spent working as an undercover agent at a Butlin's Holiday Camp in North Wales, and another waiting tables at a Mafia-run restaurant in Newport, R.I. Ordinary living led her to the practice of fiction. Stories have become her passion. She published some (New Irish Writing, London Magazine), won prizes for some (Hennessy Literary Award and runner-up in the William Trevor International Short Story Competition), designed and presented a course to encourage like-minded others (U.C.C. 2005-2008). She lives with her husband, in Cork.

Angela Sherlock has worked in information retrieval; as a chefs’ assistant and as a (not very good) coil winder. She taught English in secondary schools in London and in Devon, where she currently resides, as wife, mother and fiction writer. Leaf Writers’ Magazine has published two of her short pieces. Her first novel (as yet unpublished), The Apple Castle, was long-listed for The Virginia Prize and shortlisted for the Hookline Novel Competition. Set Dance is from her second novel, Exports, a collection of interlinked short stories about the Irish Diaspora.

Teresa Stenson's short fiction has been published in various places, most notably the 2009 Bridport Prize Winners' anthology. She is 29 and lives in York, where she balances two jobs with her writing ambitions. Along with writing short stories, Teresa is in the midst of creating a longer piece of fiction.  She keeps a blog about her writing at www.teresa-stenson.blogspot.com.

Nemone Thornes was born in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, and studied Philosophy at Newnham College, Cambridge. At nineteen, she sold her first story to The Yorkshire Post, and her humorous short stories appeared in the Post for the following eight years. Since starting to write serious short fiction in 2007, Nemone has won prizes or been shortlisted in over twenty literary competitions. Her stories have been published by Leaf Books and Writers’ Forum, and are awaiting publication at Dark Tales magazine.

Y.J. Zhu is a native of Beijing, China who now lives in San Francisco. Her first published work describes racing a motorbike across the Taklamakan Desert. She has also delivered a yacht to Mexico, sailed up the Mekong River, and cruised down the Irrawaddy River. Materials for stories come from a variety of life experience, including biking across France, exploring Angkor and Machu Picchu. She currently makes her living managing projects for financial institutions.

Results event

Join acclaimed local author Maggie Gee for an evening to celebrate the short story and find out who has taken the prize mug at a special event on Thursday 7 April in Willesden. We are grateful to Maggie Gee for adjudicating and to Willesden Green Writers' Group for all their help with this to date.

Launch party                 Facebook Event               New Short Stories 5

Supported by Willesden Green Writers' Group