Lucy Luck

Thank you very much to our judges, Lucy Luck and Liv Bignold for selecting the five wonderful winning stories from our shortlist and for their general comments about the list and their insightful comments on the winners.

Liv Bignold

Judges’ Overall Thoughts

We were delighted by the quality and diversity of the stories shortlisted for BSSA 2025. All the writers have a praise-worthy handle on prose, and they embraced the short story form with imagination and zest. The stories were brilliantly varied, encompassing snapshot events, descriptions of sprawling political movements, and intimate essayistic monologues. Certain themes and motifs cropped up throughout the shortlist: immigration and journeys, cooking, agriculture, bodily transformation, fatherhood. But the shortlist can’t be distilled into an easy collection of messages, and that’s what makes it so brilliant: each story’s power lies in its nuances and the way in which the different components interact to create a vivid impression of the author’s world. Well done to everyone featured – we hope we’ll one day read more from you!

First Prize: DANCER, ALL LEGS UP by Cleo Haywood

Dancer, All Legs Up is a charged, sinewy story that reimagines the fable of Hansel and Gretel in a stark red land reminiscent of the wild west or a Mad Max style apocalyptic wasteland. The atmosphere is potent, the dialogue taut, and the plot deeply disturbing. It often feels like retellings of fables are now commonplace, and rarely exciting, but the quality of the muscular prose, stylish world-building and sense of depth to the lead characters’ relationship is truly impressive.

Second Prize: DANGER ZONE by Jay McKenzie

Danger Zone is a keenly poignant study of ageing, loneliness and grief, told through a wash of nostalgia. We were struck by the precision of the prose here; the author exerts perfect control over the narrative, circling the source of the narrator’s disillusionment in a way that reflects the vacuous nature of loss. The way that the past bleeds into the present day narration is skilfully executed and the descriptions of urban decay feel rich in political and allegorical meaning. This is a dignified, hugely sympathetic portrait of a middle-aged woman grieving for the optimism of youth.

Third Prize: BLUE SILK SHEETS by Zuzu Burton 

Blue Silk Sheets is a compelling and sinister piece told in increasingly unsettling snippets. We were both struck by the opening line, ‘My boyfriend’s wife…’, a fantastic hook that sets the tone for the offbeat tone to come. This is not an easy story – the author delights in wrong-footing the reader, embracing droll humour, nastiness and a quirkiness that at time recalls a dark Miranda July – but it is hugely rewarding. This is a striking and distinctive take on the trend of ‘Weird Girl fiction’.

Our highly commended stories are:

GONE FISHING by Ray Cluley

Gone Fishing is a tight depiction of burgeoning masculinity and unspoken grief. Whilst the central metaphor – the fish as the boy’s father – isn’t subtle, this is a fantastic lesson in how to ‘show not tell’, and the restrained prose signals to wonderfully rich subtext. The dialogue, in particular, resonates with language around dying – ‘we’re losing him’ and ‘does it hurt?’ have emotional connotations. This story is quietly beautiful.

BAD LITTLE GARDENS by Gio Iozzi

An ambitious, evocative piece exploring female pain, how to find meaning in suffering and the cathartic power of art. The insularity of the narration is balanced with the visceral descriptions of her body, whilst the clinical medical language is offset by the visual nature of the narrator’s painting. The ending is a little quiet, but the bulk of the story is energised and politicised by the narrator’s difficulty navigating a patriarchal healthcare system, and the interweaving of the narrator’s experience with the legend of Frida Kahlo is nicely done.

Acorn Prize for an unpublished writer of Fiction

The Dance of the Fire by Steve Mellon

BSSA team’s comment: ‘We loved this haunting story about a topical subject – Australian wildfires. The events are seen through the eyes of an eight-year-old boy and, as the drama unfolds, the horror and poignancy are revealed through a skilful development of the story arc and clean, honest writing.’

Local Prize

The Song of the Salmon by Joanna CampbelL

BSSA team’s comment: ‘This quirky tale about a couple who decide to cook a whole salmon in a house they’re only supposed to minding for a neighbour is beautifully told. Occasional dead pan humour, an eye for detail and subtle imagery reveals so much about their relationship as well as how we view others. Like the salmon there are ‘hidden depths’.’

Many congratulations to all the writers shortlisted in our 2025 Award. They reached the final seventeen out of 915 entries. Authors are listed alphabetically by surname. You can read our judges’ general report on all the stories here. All these brilliant stories will be published in paperback in our 2025 anthology later this year. We’re looking forward to seeing them in print.

Lauren Collett

Lauren Collett shortlisted with her story ‘Strings’, is a British writer of short fiction. Her work has been shortlisted for several prizes, including the Manchester Fiction Prize, and her stories have been published in Mslexia, The Stinging Fly and various anthologies of both short and flash fiction. In 2024 she won the Mslexia Short Story Prize. She is working on a story collection and a novel.

Malina Douglas

Malina Douglas shortlisted with her story, ‘We Are Europe’ is inspired by the encounters that shape us. In 2023 she was awarded first place in the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize and made the top three of the Leicester Writes Prize. Her suite of flash fictions was shortlisted by Defenestrationism and published on their website. Publications include the National Flash Fiction Day Anthology, Consequence Forum, WestWord Journal by Retreat West, Ginosko Literary, Typehouse and Because That’s Where Your Heart Is from Sans Press. She is an alumna of Smokelong Summer and is based in Tbilisi, Sakartvelo, where she runs weekly writing workshops. She can be found on BlueSky @iridescentwords.

Kathyrn Inns

Kathryn Inns, shortlisted with her story ‘Skin’ is a collector of myriad part-time employment while raising a small band of kids. Previous examples include museum services officer, animatronic dinosaur ranger, butterfly house assistant, exam invigilator and pickpocketing coach at a Dickensian literary festival. She is a Classical history obsessive whose passion for all things Greco-Roman drew her to distance learning, obtaining her MA in Classical Studies through The Open University. She enjoys visiting historical heritage sites and anywhere open, bracing and full of trees. She lives in Kent with her family and obscenely small dog.

Morwenna Lawson

Morwenna Lawson, shortlisted with her story, ‘Wheels’ typed two chapters of a novel on her mum’s Olivetti aged six. She went on to become a magazine journalist, covering an assortment of topics from holistic health to homes and food. She has tried her hand at astrology writing (Gemini) and was online editor for an events company in Singapore. Her short stories and poems are influenced by all of those eclectic roles. She has previously made it to the Long-Longlist of the Brick Lane Bookshop Short Story Prize and is currently halfway through an MA in Creative Writing at the Arts University Bournemouth. You can find her @wordfairy.co.uk

Rosaleen Lynch

Rosaleen Lynch, shortlisted with her story, ‘Waterghosts’ is an Irish community worker, teacher and writer in London, with work selected for the Wigleaf Top 50 2023, Best Small Fictions 2024 and Best of the Net 2024 and is currently researching the power of stories to promote social change.

Aislinn Kelly-Lyth

Aislinn Kelly-Lyth, shortlisted with her story, ‘Shelter’ lives and writes in London. Her short fiction has featured or is forthcoming in Fictive Dream, Rock and a Hard Place Magazine, and pendemic.ie. She was Highly Commended in the Costa Short Story Award 2020. She studied law at university, and works as a barrister.

Katie Oliver

Katie Oliver, shortlisted with her story ‘A Study in Evolution’ is a writer based on the West Coast of Ireland. Her debut short fiction collection, I Wanted To Be Close To You, was published in 2022 by Fly on the Wall Press, and her follow up collection, Ingrown, is forthcoming in 2026.

Ella Plevin

Ella Plevin, shortlisted with her story, ‘The Egg’ is a writer from London. Her short fiction has appeared in The Cambridge Review of Books and Somesuch Stories. She holds an MSt from the University of Cambridge and a BA from Camberwell College of Arts. She is also a contributing editor at Marfa Journal.

Jennifer Riddalls

Jennifer Riddalls, shortlisted with her story ‘What Would Dog Do’  is a frequent shortlistee and occasional winner of short story competitions. Scottish, but living in England, she shares her home with her husband, three boys, three cats, and a tortoise who thinks he’s the main character. Her dark stories tend to wander into the weird, the tender, and the slightly twisted.

Amy Jane Stewart

Amy Jane Stewart, shortlisted with her story, ‘My sister is making cocido’ is a writer from the Scottish Borders. She won the New Writing North & Word Factory Northern Apprentice Award in 2021, and the Mairtín Crawford Prize for Short Story in 2022. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from York St John University and is studying for a Creative Writing PhD at the University of Sheffield. In 2023, she received a grant from Creative Scotland to write her debut novel, Hex House, which is forthcoming from Titan Books in 2026. She is represented by Marilia Savvides at the Plot Agency.

Huge congratulations to the winners and highly commended stories from our 2025 International Story Award. The bios and photos of all the authors are below and you can read the comments of our judges, Lucy Luck, Liv Bignold and the senior BSSA team in their report. The stories will be published in paperback in our 2025 BSSA Anthology, out later this year.

Cleo Heywood

First Prize: Dancer All Legs Up by Cleo Heywood Cleo is a writer based in London, currently studying for an MSt in Creative Writing at the University of Oxford. Her work explores dreams, monsters and other worlds, often using speculative and surrealist forms to explore the historical mistreatment and misrepresentation of women. She is primarily a playwright, and this is her first short story – and her first prose publication. Cleo graduated with a First Class BA (Hons) in Writing for Performance from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in 2024. Cleo’s poetry has appeared in The Weasel, is forthcoming in Oxford’s The ISIS Magazine, and has appeared in exhibition for TEXTUS network’s ‘HOUSE OF HABERDASH’. Her stage plays have been performed at venues including the Science Museum, the University of Sussex, and Soho Theatre Downstairs.

Jay McKenzie

Second Prize: Danger Zone by Jay McKenzie
Jay McKenzie’s work appears in adda, Maudlin House, The Hooghly Review, Fahmidan Journal, Fictive Dream and others. She recently won the Fish Short Story Prize, was runner up in the inaugural Tom Grass Literary Prize, and has been shortlisted for prizes such as the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and others. Her novel How to Lose the Lottery will be published by Harper Fiction Spring 2026.

Zuzu Cole

Third Prize: Blue Silk Sheets by Zuzu Cole
Zuzu Cole is a writer from Bath, currently studying English with Film at King’s College London. She enjoys writing dryly humorous, voice-driven short stories often centring on themes of femininity, desire, and complex relationships. When she’s not writing, she finds inspiration in cinema visits, walks in nature and making her way through the towering stack of books on her living room floor.

Steve Mellen

The Acorn Prize (for an unpublished writer of fiction), The Dance of the Fire, by Steve Mellen
Steve is a journalist currently working for the BBC, who writes stories in his spare time as – in his words – ‘I was useless at school, except for lessons which involved storytelling.’ His main work in progress is a novel called Ask The Ghosts, which earlier this summer won the Oxford/42 New Writing Prize. ‘The Dance of the Fire’ was born out of watching a documentary called Black Saturday about wildfires that tore through the countryside surrounding Melbourne in February 2009, killing 175 people.

Joanna Campbell

Local Prize: The Song of The Salmon by Joanna Campbell
Joanna’s two published novels are Tying Down the Lion and Instructions for the Working Day, which was shortlisted for the Rubery International Book Award and for The Independent’s Book of the Month.
Her short story collection, When Planets Slip Their Tracks, was shortlisted for the Rubery International Book Award and longlisted for the Edge Hill University Prize. Her first published novella-in-flash, A Safer Way to Fall, was runner-up in the inaugural Bath Flash Fiction Award and her second, Sybilla, won the National Flash Fiction Day Award. Her short stories are published in numerous anthologies, have won first prize in the Exeter Writers competition, London Short Story Prize, Magic Oxygen Literary Prize, Retreat West Short Story Prize, and were shortlisted twice for the Bristol Prize. Her flash fiction came second in the 2017 Bridport Prize, for which her short stories have been shortlisted many times.

Ray Cluley

Highly Commended: Gone Fishing by Ray Cluely
Ray Cluley’s fiction has been published in various magazines and anthologies. He has published two short story collections and recently completed a novel for which he hopes to find a home this year. He holds a PhD in Creative Writing and lives in Wales with his partner and two mischievous but adorable cats.

GIovanna Iozzi

Highly Commended: Bad Little Gardens by Giovanna Iozzi

Giovanna Iozzi has a PhD in Creative Writing from Goldsmiths University. A winner of the Pat Kavanagh prize, her stories have been published and listed in various places including The Brick Lane Story Prize, The Bridport Prize, The Bristol Short Story Prize, Ambit Magazine, the Nature Chronicles Prize, The Brighton Prize, Fish Short Memoir Prize, Exeter Writers. Her story ‘Tipping’ is published in 22 Fictions (Cheerio Publishing/Desperate Literature, 2025) introduced by Wendy Erskine & Joanna Walsh. She teaches fiction courses and workshops at Goldsmiths ECW Dept. Website: joiozzi.com. X: @gioiozzi Gio is also a nature campaigner and set up Haringey Tree Protectors @justplanenews

Patrick Holloway won first prize with his wonderful short story,’The Language of Remembering’ in our 2023 Award, judged by Farhana Shaikh. We’re very excited to announce that his debut novel, with the same title, was published at the end of last month by Epoque Press. and is available from their store, bookshops and from Amazon. The novel extends the story of the short story’s protagaonist, Oisin, and here’s a brief summary: Continue reading →

With two weeks to go until the £1750 prize fund 2025 Bath Short Story Award, judged by Lucy Luck and Liv Bignold from C & W Literary Agency, closes at midnight on Monday March  31st, try these ten tiny tweaks to your story before you enter. Continue reading →

Our 2025 Award closes on 31st March. In FOUR weeks. Maybe if you are entering, you are at the stage where you are thinking about a title. Maybe you began your short story with a title in mind? Maybe your story is still percolating before any words get down on paper?

How do you create a good title? So much has been written about this. Good ones stay with you for ever. I love Raymond Carver’s famous short story title, which is also the title of one of his collections,  “What we talk about when we talk about love.” Gordon Lish, his editor, retitled it  “I Am Going to Sit Down.” but thankfully,  it  was never published in that version.

There’s a fun thing I saw recently somewhere online, which suggested writing  bad versions of famous titles of novels and short stories. For example, ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ could be ‘The Fruits of Anger’. Worse, another Steinbeck novel. ‘Of Mice and Men’ could be translated into  ‘Of Rodents and Males.”What about this version of “Sons and Lovers” — ‘Offspring and Their Romantic Partners’? Or ‘Fondness in the Season of the Plague’. Silly, but useful to study the originals and see how they work. Is it the weight of the words, or what they encompass about the book or the short story. Is it the rhythm or the length of the title? Continue reading →

We’d like to welcome Sarah Hegarty, who’s joined our team of readers for the 2025 Bath Short Story Award. Sarah recently published her debut collection of short stories Magpie, with Troubador and has agreed to answer a few questions. Continue reading →