GALLEY BEGGAR PRESS SHORT STORY PRIZE 2021/22

A message from Galley Beggar Press’s co-director, Sam Jordison.

WE ARE VERY PLEASED to announce the longlist for the 2020/21 Galley Beggar Press short story prize. As always, reading the stories has been a heartening, fascinating process. We received well over a thousand entries this year and we’ve been thoroughly impressed by the creative talent on display from around the globe. There has been a longstanding worry in the book pages of the UK press about the health of the short story – but everything we’ve seen convinces us that there are many talented writers out there who are making the most of this unique form to innovate, to investigate emotions, and to tell stories that matter.

This has been the seventh year of our competition – and the second during the Covid-19 pandemic. I don’t have any particular wise words to share on the latter point, although perhaps a few patterns have emerged. It’s interesting that we received so many touching meditations on relationships and mortality, for instance. 

More generally, however, it was the breadth of subject matter and the individuality of each story and talent that struck us. It was especially pleasing that we received so many submissions from all around the world. It’s been moving to see so many varied expressions of shared humanity – not to mention so much artistic endeavour. 

It helps that so many of these stories were of such high quality. Every year the task of selecting the stories simultaneously becomes tougher and more pleasurable. John Self, one of the judges of this year's prize says:

“This is the first prize I have judged and the standard of entries has made it a surprise and a delight. There's something for everyone in our longlisted stories, and I’m dreading the process of narrowing them down to a shortlist.”

John is right. There will be some hard decisions to make about which stories proceed into the next round – but there is also the delight of finding stories we love.

Isha Karki, one of the judge’s of this year’s prize (not to mention a past winner) sums up this positive feeling:  

“It was a real pleasure reading for the longlist. Some stories struck me from the first line, some I admired more and more on every read. I was delighted to encounter experiments with form, creative worldbuilding, beautiful writing, indeed I had so many favourites – and they appear in the Special Mentions too – that judging was a joyous struggle.”

Thanks to that joyous struggle we are now able to share our longlist with you, which, as Isha says, is  “full of stories that are confident, playful, ambitious, stories that are deceptive in their simplicity and stories that are both intimate and expansive.”

The best thing I can do do make that point is to urge you to read them for yourself. You will find the full longlist with links to the stories below. (And below that, we’ve also included some ‘special mentions’. These are stories that didn’t get into the next round, but do show so much promise and talent that we also had to give them some recognition.)

Before we get to the list, both Elly and I want to express our gratitude to everyone who has entered and made this such an exciting competition. There are a great many stories that came very close to making the cut and we’re really hopeful that some of those writers will get a chance to shine in the future, both in our competition and in the wider world of literature. We’re also very grateful to our judges who have read the stories so carefully and done such a fantastic job of helping us to produce the 2021/22 Short Story Prize longlist.

Here it is:

‘Jamboree’, by Alex Aspden

‘The Tree Wife’, by Manish Chauhan

‘The Life and Sulphurous Death of Theo D.’, by Wayne Connolly

‘The Good People’, by Conor Crummey

‘That More Dear Than Hands Or Tongue’, by Clare Fielder

‘The Architect’, by Katie Hale

‘Arrival’, by Gurnaik Johal

‘Appa and I’, by Pragati K.B.

‘You and the Girls’, by Mathilde Merouani

‘Queen of Charm’, by Danielle Vrublevskis

SPECIAL MENTIONS. 

‘Pickled Souls’, by Sussie Anie

‘Not the End of the World’, by Annabel Banks

‘A Remedy’, by Lorna Elcock

‘Before Behind Between Above Below’, by Mary Franklin

‘One of the Boys’, by Ashley Goldberg

‘Black Sheep’, by Jade Green

‘Flatland with Monuments’, by Caoilinn Hughes

‘Burn Before Reading’, by Alice Jolly

‘Oddbody’, by Rose Keating

‘Special Collection’, by Sophie Ratcliffe

‘Suneeta Refuses To Say I love you’, by Vandana Sehrawat

‘Paula’, by Rachel Sloan

‘Watford Gaps’, by Danielle Vrublevskis

‘Have You Seen Enough Now’, by Emily Waugh