Last night we held an online launch for our 2025 anthology and were thrilled that 13 of our authors were able to  be with us to read extracts from their stories. In between the readings we held brief breakout groups so the authors could meet and chat about, among other things, how they worked and future projects.

Authors present were: Cleo Haywood, Jay McKenzie, Zuzu Cole, Joanna Campbell, Steve Mellen, Gio Iozzi, Kathryn Inns, Lauren Collett, Rosaleen Lynch, Amy Stewart, Ella Plevin, Morwenna Lawson and, joining us from Brazil, Malina Douglas.

Our 2026 award ends in 5 weeks on Monday, April 27th. We welcome stories from any genre and in any form/style of up to 2200 words. Prizes are £1200 (1st), £300 ( 2nd), £100 ( 3rd) with the Acorn Award for an Unpublished Writer of Fiction and a Local Prize sponsored by Mr B’s Emporium of Books. Our judge is literary agent Gordon Wise from Curtis Brown.  Time to get writing! Copies of the anthology are available from us (UK residents only) or from Amazon