Many congratulations to all our winning and highly commended writers. This year, the third prize winner Alex Sinclair Lack, who lives in Bristol, has also won the local prize. And Sarah Muldowney, one of the highly commended writers, won the Acorn Prize for an unpublished writer of fiction. Thank you to our judge Gordon Wise who selected the stories. You can read his excellent comments in his judge’s report linked here and do check out the bios of our shortlisted writers We’ll be publishing all these brilliant short stories in our 2026 anthology, out later this year.

Charlotte Sinclair

First Prize:’The Wedding Guest’ by Charlotte Sinclair

Bio: Charlotte Sinclair is a writer and journalist from London, contributing to the Financial Times and Vogue, amongst others. Last year she won the Aurora Prize for short fiction and second prize in the Ponta Lopud short story competition. She is currently working on a collection of short stories.

Lea Lang

Second Prize :’Lethologica – On the Removal of Words’
by Lea Lang

Bio: Lea Lang is a history student from Munich who recently completed a year at the University of Edinburgh. Her academic work focuses on global and imperial history, culture, and the stories people tell about themselves. She writes fiction out of curiosity about language, memory, and the words that disappear just before we need them. ‘Lethologica – On the Removal of Words’ is her first publication.

Alex Sinclair Lack

Third Prize (and local prize): ‘Afloat’ by Alex Sinclair Lack.

Bio: Alex’s Hinge profile calls him an adventurer, his LinkedIn calls him a creative strategist, the Turkmenistan immigration bureau calls him a journalist, and everyone else just calls him a wanker. Keen photographer, terrible mandolin player, stroker of stray cats, Alex is usually somewhere he shouldn’t be, dreaming of making a difference through storytelling.

Sara Muldowney

Highly Commended & The Acorn Award

• for an unpublished fiction writer:

‘Only the doors’ by Sara Muldowney

Bio: Sara Muldowney is a writer from Essex. Her fiction explores memory, family and the quiet mysteries of everyday life.

Ayesha Farhat

Highly Commended: ‘A Legacy of Tea Coasters’ by Ayesha Farhat

Bio: Ayesha was raised in Pakistan and moved to Norway in 2013 where she works as a Product Manager, whilst mentoring women in technical fields where they lack representation. Her novel was longlisted in the Bath Novel Award 2022 and shortlisted in the London Festival of Writing 2026 Friday Night Live. Her short stories have been published in the Leicester Writes Short Story Prize Anthology, The Aleph Review a and the Oslo Writers League Anthology. She is also an alumna of the Jericho Writers Self-Edit Your Novel course and the Curtis Brown Creative Writing Your Novel: Three Months course.