Salena Godden

Salena Godden has been described as ‘The doyenne of the spoken word scene’ (Ian McMillan, BBC Radio 3’s The Verb); ‘The Mae West madam of the salon’ (The Sunday Times) and as ‘everything the Daily Mail is terrified of’ (Kerrang! Magazine). Her pamphlet of poems, Under the Pier, was published by Nasty Little Press in 2011. An anthology of over 80 of […]
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SJ Naudé

S.J. Naudé grew up in South Africa. He studied at Cambridge University, was a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University and practised law in New York and London for many years. His collection of stories, The Alphabet of Birds, won multiple awards, including the South African Literary Award for best debut work, and it will be published in […]
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Murzban F. Shroff

Murzban F. Shroff is a Bombay-born writer. His stories have been published in over 50 literary journals in the U.S., and the United Kingdom, including the Gettysburg Review, the Louisville Review, the Minnesota Review, and the Southwest Review. His short story collection, Breathless in Bombay, was shortlisted for the 2009 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize.
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D W Wilson

D W Wilson is the author of a collection of short stories, Once You Break a Knuckle (Bloomsbury), which includes the 2011 award-winning BBC National Short Story, ‘The Dead Roads’. His first novel Ballistics (Bloomsbury UK & US, Penguin Canada) has been selected for the Waterstones 11 and has been longlisted for the Dylan Thomas […]
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Krys Lee

Krys Lee was born in Seoul, South Korea, raised in California and Washington, and studied in the United States and England. Her debut book Drifting House by Viking/Penguin, USA, and Faber and Faber, U.K., made the San Francisco Chronicle and Kansas City Star 2012 best books of the year list. She was awarded The 2012 […]
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Nii Ayikwei Parkes

Nii Ayikwei Parkes is a writer, editor, socio-cultural commentator and performance poet. He holds an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck (University of London) and is a 2007 recipient of Ghana’s national ACRAG award for poetry and literary advocacy. Nii’s début novel ‘Tail of the Blue Bird’ was shortlisted for the 2010 Commonwealth Prize and […]
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Francesca Rhydderch

Francesca Rhydderch’s debut novel ‘The Rice Paper Diaries’ won the Wales Book of the Year Fiction Prize 2014. She was also shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award in the same year. A former editor of literary magazine New Welsh Review, she is currently Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Swansea University.
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John Lavin

John Lavin has a doctorate in Creative Writing from the University of Wales, Trinity Saint David. He is the editor of the short story anthology A Fiction Map of Wales (H’mm Foundation, 2014) and also the Fiction Editor of Wales Arts Review and former Editor of The Lampeter Review. His short stories have been published by The Incubator, Spork Press, Dead […]
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Carys Davies

Carys Davies is the author of two collections of short stories, ‘Some New Ambush’ and ‘The Redemption of Galen Pike’. Her fiction has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and published by The Dublin Review, Granta New Writing, Prospect, The Royal Society of Literature Review, The Stinging Fly and various anthologies including, most recently, Victoria Hislop’s […]
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Rachel Trezise

Rachel Trezise was born in the Rhondda Valley in South Wales, where she still lives. Her first short fiction collection ‘Fresh Apples’ won the Dylan Thomas Prize in 2006. Her second short fiction collection ‘Cosmic Latte’ won the Edge Hill Short Story Prize reader’s award in 2014. She also writes novels, non-fiction and drama.
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Nikesh Shukla

Nikesh Shukla is a fiction and television writer. His short stories have been featured in: Best British Short Stories 2013, Five Dials, The Moth Magazine, Pen Pusher, The Sunday Times, Book Slam, BBC Radio 4, First City Magazine and Teller Magazine. He has written for theGuardian, Esquire and BBC 2. He has, in the past, been writer in residence for BBC Asian Network and Royal Festival Hall. His […]
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Niven Govinden

Niven is an English novelist and short story writer. His short stories have been published in Time Out, Pen Pusher, Five Dials, uber cool magazine Butt, and broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s the Verb. He was born in East Sussex and educated at Goldsmith’s College where he studied film. He has written three novels, ‘We Are […]
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Toby Litt

Toby Litt is a short story writer and novelist. He has published twelve books, including Adventures in Capitalism, Exhibitionism, I play the drums in a band called okay and Life-Like. His story ‘John & John’ won the semi-widely-known Manchester Fiction Prize, and his story ‘Call it “The Bug” Because I Have No Time To Think of a Better Title” was […]
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May-Lan Tan

May-Lan Tan is the author of the story collection ‘Things to Make and Break‘ (CB editions, 2014) and the chapbook Girly (Future Tense, 2014). Her work has appeared in Zoetrope: All-Story, The Reader, Arete, The Atlas Review, Spork, and The Quietus. Things to Make and Break was shortlisted for 2014’s Guardian First Book Award and on the London Review bookshop’s Book of The Year list. May-Lan is […]
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Marina Warner

Recently appointed Professor of English and Creative Writing at Birkbeck College, University of London, Marina is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, was awarded a CBE for services to literature and has won numerous awards for her fiction and criticism. Marina’s short stories have been published as collections […]
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Laura van den Berg

Laura is the author of two short story collections. Her first, ‘What the World Will Look Like When All The Water Leaves Us’ (Dzanc Books, 2009), was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection and shortlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Award. Her second collection, ‘The Isle Of Youth’ (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2013) won the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award […]
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Kevin Barry

Kevin Barry is the author of the short story collections ‘Dark Lies The Island’ and ‘There Are Little Kingdoms’ and the novel ‘City Of Bohane’. His new novel, ‘beatlebone’, will be published in October ’15. He has won the Impac Dublin City Literary Prize, the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Prize, the European Union Prize […]
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Jon McGregor

Jon McGregor writes novels and short stories. His recent books include a short story collection, This Isn’t the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You, and his third novel, Even the Dogs, which won the IMPAC Dublin Literature Award in 2012. He is a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Nottingham, where he edits The Letters […]
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Joe Dunthorne

Joe is a short story writer, novelist and poet. Shortlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Award in 2010 for his story ‘Critical Responses to My Last Relationship’, he is best known for his novel ‘Submarine’, made into a film by Richard Ayoade. His work has been published in numerous magazines and anthologies, and has featured […]
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Diriye Osman

Diriye Osman, won the Polari First Book Prize 2014. His critically-acclaimed debut short story collection ‘Fairytales for Lost Children‘, (Team Angelica Press), was also one of The Guardian’s books of the year 2014. A British-Somali short story writer, essayist, critic and visual artist, the Polari judges said Diriye’s collection ‘dazzled’ them with a wide range of literary voices in a stunning […]
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Kirsty Logan

Kirsty Logan is a professional daydreamer. Her debut collection of stories The Rental Heart and Other Fairytales (Salt, 2014) won The Scott Prize 2013. Writer and cultural commentator Bidisha described Kirsty’s prize-winning collection as: “A thrilling walk through a brilliant mind, full of unexpected connections and utterly original leaps across voice, structure, genre. Truly anarchic artistically but always true emotionally, […]
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Adam Marek

Adam Marek is the award-winning author of two short story collections: Instruction Manual For Swallowing and The Stone Thrower – both published by Comma Press in the UK and ECW Press in North America. He won the 2011 Arts Foundation Short Story Fellowship, and was shortlisted for the inaugural Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award […]
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Salena Godden
SJ Naudé
Murzban F. Shroff
D W Wilson
Krys Lee
Nii Ayikwei Parkes
Francesca Rhydderch
John Lavin
Carys Davies
Rachel Trezise
Nikesh Shukla
Niven Govinden
Toby Litt
May-Lan Tan
Marina Warner
Laura van den Berg
Kevin Barry
Jon McGregor
Joe Dunthorne
Diriye Osman
Kirsty Logan
Adam Marek

London Short Story Festival

19-21 June 2014

We had the most fantastic time running our first London Short Story Festival between Friday 20 – Sunday 22 June 2014, held in association with Waterstones. In this superbly appropriate setting we hosted over 40 short story writers of all genres, who ran workshops and masterclasses, gave live readings, took part in panel discussions and gave exclusive author interviews. There are too many highlights to mention here but luckily for us people have been blogging about their experience – to get a flavour of the magic of the weekend read a selection here: volunteers, authors and above all our festival goers!

You can see the video interviews with some of our 2014 authors courtesy of our lovely partners Facultimedia.

2015’s festival is shaping up to be even bigger and better. If you’d like to get involved please email us at lssf@spreadtheword.org.uk and stay tuned for updates and headlines via our news page. Follow us on twitter and Facebook and make sure you’re registered to get Spread the Word’s e-newsletter. And of course, put the weekend of 19 – 21 June 2015 in your diary…See you there.

Director, Spread the Word

The London Short
Story Prize

Ruby Cowling has won the London Short Story Prize 2014 with her short story ‘Flamingo Land’. The Prize was announced at the spiritual home of the London Short Story Festival, Waterstones Piccadilly, at a special event with Word Factory Director Cathy Galvin, who was also one of the Prize judges.  Ruby appeared at the London Short Story Festival in June 2014 at Speakers’ Corner, reading her White Review published short story ‘Biophile’, which you can read here.

Judges Cathy Galvin and Jackie Kay said of her winning story:

A rare story: both tender and dystopian. A haunting evocation of lives lived just a step away from our own where triumphant consumerism is used as control, reward and punishment. Such a brilliant and disturbing story. A story that makes you worry about our times; the story, although dystopian, teeters on the edge of some things that are already happening. It does what all great stories do holds up a haunting mirror to our society.

You won’t have to wait too long to be able to read Ruby’s winning short story… Spread the Word will announce details of the publication via its digital publishing imprint Flight Press.

Judges also highly commended two entries by Janet Swinney and Katie Willis, the London Short Story Prize runners-up.

On Janet Swinney’s ‘The Work of Lesser Known Artists’, Cathy and Jackie said:

This story packs a punch and puts a smile on the face – quite an achievement. An energetic and ambitious take evoking the humour and vitality of one woman’s life as she breaks free of the imprisonment of the everyday. An uplifting and irreverent story – bold and engaging, it asks important questions about reality, perceptions and art.

Of Katie Willis‘ ‘The Passenger':

Quite simply brave, original and strange. This writer revels in language and imagery. We loved the inventiveness of this. The language entranced us, fresh and dynamic and original.

We look forward to reading more from these great short story writers…and who knows? We may be seeing them at the London Short Story Festival 2015.

The London Short Story Prize will be back in 2015! We will launch this properly at the London Short Story Festival (19-21 June 2015, don’t cha know) and are very excited to be sharing who our very exciting judges will be and other details.

Continuing from the 2014 LSSP there will be no theme and the limit is 8,000 words. This prize is only open to London writers.

Stay tuned for more updates as we get closer to June 19-21.

Enter now

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14 January
Niven Govinden

6 January
Nikesh Shukla

22 December
Kirsty Logan

Festival Partners

Waterstones Piccadilly is situated in the heart of London’s West End. Now Europe’s largest bookshop, it is an admired landmark of London’s architecture, and a great venue for our event.

Waterstones
203-206 Piccadilly
W1J 9HD

Salena Godden

SJ Naudé

Murzban F. Shroff

D W Wilson

Krys Lee

Nii Ayikwei Parkes

Francesca Rhydderch

John Lavin

Carys Davies

Rachel Trezise

Nikesh Shukla

Niven Govinden

Toby Litt

May-Lan Tan

Marina Warner

Laura van den Berg

Kevin Barry

Jon McGregor

Joe Dunthorne

Diriye Osman

Kirsty Logan

Adam Marek