The 2026 Bath Short Story Award is open for entries now and closes on 27th April. We have five different prizes and one of them is the local prize. For several years, Mr B’s Emporium of Books in Bath has kindly donated book vouchers to the sum of £50 for the local winner.

Joanna Campbell who won in 2025 met with Jane, Alison and I at Mr B’s just before Christmas and is pictured here receiving her vouchers.

We had a lovely chat over coffee afterwards and Joanna told us how her story,’The Song of the Salmon’, which you can read in the 2025 BSSA Anthology (available from adhocfiction.com and soon from Amazon) was one she wrote several years ago and revisited. Joanna also won the local prize in 2012.

Joanna writes in many genres and has won numerous awards for her short stories over the years and also for her flash fiction, novels and novellas. She is also an artist. You can read a very interesting recent interview with her and gain some excellent writing tips on the National Flash Fiction Day website, where she is currently a microfiction judge and also artist in residence.

Jude Higgins
BSSA team member, Jan 2026