Short Story Competition Winner Announced

Irish author and journalist Colm Toibin was unveiled as the winner of Edge Hill University's Prize for the Short Story at an awards ceremony in Manchester on Friday 20 July.

His collection of short stories, Mothers and Sons, captured the imagination of the judges with its haunting tales of family relationships set in isolated rural and village communities.

Colm Toibin, the author of five novels including the Booker Prize shortlisted The Blackwater Lightship and The Master will receive the £5,000 first prize.

Edge Hill University pioneered this new award to find the best short story collection by a single author from the British Isles.

All the major short story publishers in the UK entered the competition, including Faber, Penguin Macmillan and Headline alongside smaller presses such as Salt, Serpents Tail, Fourth Estate and Toby Press.

The judges' panel comprised 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, who will present the prize on the night.

Ailsa Cox, who devised the award, said: "We were highly impressed with the quality of entries we received, ranging from household names to up-and-coming new talent.

"Ultimately it was a very difficult decision to pick a winner but we couldn't fail to be swept away by Mothers and Sons. Each short story had an emotional resonance and a haunting quality which meant it lingered in the mind.

"Colm Toibin is a real master in providing an intensity of experience for his reader."

"The Edge Hill Prize has certainly excited a great deal of interest in the literary world and added to the current resurgence of the short story."

The prize ceremony will be a curtain-raiser for the second one-day conference of the short story to be held at Edge Hill University on Saturday, July 21, when Jackie Kay, Nicholas Royle and Tamar Yellin are expected to read extracts from their work.

Colm Toibin was chosen from a final shortlist comprising:

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.

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.