Story Competition Entries are Short and Sweet

Edge Hill University is hoping the short story will have a big future and in a bid to promote the literary form is pioneering a new annual prize for the best short story collection by a single author from the British Isles.

The shortlist for the Edge Hill Prize for the Short Story has been unveiled with the final winner of the £5,000 prize to be revealed at a ceremony at Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre on 20 July. Some of the authors on the shortlist will be reading at the second one day conference on the short story, taking place at Edge Hill on the 21 July.

Judges Andrew Cant from Simply Books, Ailsa Cox, Reader in Writing and English at Edge Hill University and AL Kennedy, Scottish short story writer and novelist, have come up with a shortlist of five authors and their collections - some well-known and others less well-established writers.

Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things Neil Gaiman is the cult author behind the Sandman graphic novels, and has just scripted a version of Beowulf which is being filmed with Ray Winstone and Angelina Jolie.

Jackie Kay, Wish I Was Here Based in Manchester, Jackie Kay is an award-winnng poet, novelist and broadcaster, as well as a short story writer. This collection won the Decibel Prize. One of the stories was shortlisted for this year's National Short Story Prize.

Nicholas Royle, Mortality Another Manchester-based writer, Nicholas Royle has been described as 'a funnier Ian McEwan or a kinder Will Self'. He is the author of five novels and has edited twelve anthologies - a regular reviewer of short stories for Time Out, he is recognised as one of the champions of the short story form.

Colm Toibin, Mothers and Sons The Irish writer Colm Toibin is the author of five novels, including the Booker Prize shortlisted The Blackwater Lightship and The Master. The stories are loosely based around the theme of mothers and sons, as the title suggests, and are often set in isolated rural or village communities.

Tamar Yellin, Kafka in Bronteland Yorkshire based Tamar Yellin is perhaps the least well known on the shortlist, but that could soon change. She has just received the $100,000 Sami Rohr prize for emergent Jewish writers, for her novel, The Genizah at the House of Shepher.

The shortlist was announced by Toby Litt who visited Edge Hill to talk about his own work as an acclaimed short story writer and novelist.

Edge Hill's Ailsa Cox, who spearheaded the prize said:

"The prize has been really well received by publishers and authors alike. The standard of entries was so high, it was a difficult job to whittle them down entries to just five. We are really keen to promote short stories which can encourage more people to read, compete against other media, and introduce younger people to some high-intensity writing."

Three of the shortlisted writers have international reputations (Toibin, Gaiman, Kay) and are with mainstream publishers. The independent presses, which have helped to keep short story publishing alive, are also represented (Royle is published by Serpent?s Tail, Yellin by the very small Toby Press).

"The variety and diversity of the short story form is also very evident," added Ailsa. "We did not just consider literary fiction such as that produced by Toibin but looked at genre as well; Gaiman is a fantasy writer and Royle dabbles in horror." ends

EDITOR'S NOTES:

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