2024 First Chapter Comp – Longlist

Many thanks to everyone who submitted their novel opening this year. We have been transported into many different lives all around the world, and beyond our own planet.

Congratulations to the writers who have made the longlist. The novel titles are shown below – please don’t tell which is yours though as we are reading anonymously.

Longlist

  • A Beehive Heart
  • A More Onerous Citizenship
  • After Us, Them
  • Birdie of the Wheatsheaf
  • Bitter Seed
  • Delusion
  • Dwell
  • Echoes of Beirut
  • Everything is Wrong
  • Everywhen and the Dark Entanglement
  • Forced Perspective
  • Frankie
  • Going Places
  • Moon Bone
  • Nine Rooms
  • Peter Heggarty Goes Around and Around
  • Red
  • Singleton
  • Sleepwalking
  • Somnia
  • Splinters from Boxes
  • Swimming in the Dark
  • The Annihilation Era
  • The Blooding of Amelia Sharp
  • The Contrabandist
  • The Devil in Bangkok
  • The Integration Protocol
  • The Law of Kindness
  • The Possibility of Us
  • The Price
  • The Ritual
  • The Root that Binds
  • When the Sea Became the Sky
  • White Death
  • Who Will Save Us

Good luck for the next round everyone! We will now choose our shortlist of 10, which will be sent to our literary agent judge, Eli Keren, to choose the winners from.

In the meantime, from very long stories to very short! The WestWord Prize Micro Fiction Category, judged by Tania Hershman, closes this month! Info here.

Monthly Micro Feb 2024 Winners

Well done to all who made it through to the final round of this month’s micro contest. The theme was LEAVES and we loved all of the shortlisted stories. It’s so hard to choose the final winners! But choose we have to so congratulations to the following writers!

NEWS! We have an announcement about this competition…from next month onwards the stories will now be published in WestWord, our online literary magazine. We can reach more readers that way and it also looks swisher. Plus, we are in the process of migrating the Retreat West website to a new home where the community, courses and website will all be in one place so it makes sense to make this change for this competition at this time so all the stories we are publishing online are all in one place.


First place: The Silence of the Leaves by Isabelle Hichens

Why we chose it: Really different take on the theme and we loved the way it shows how easy it is to misunderstand when we make assumptions.

Second place and People’s Prize: In This Version…by Fiona Dignan

Why we chose it: Great structure and really poignant tale of loss in reverse.


Shortlisted Stories


Isabelle and Fiona win the cash prizes and Fiona also win one free entry to each category of the WestWord Prize in 2024. The first category is Micro Fiction and the deadline is next month.

And the deadline for the first ever WestWord Hermit Crab Prize is just 2 days away! You have until 23.59 GMT on 29th February to send your stories.

Plus, if you want to get writing and learning about all things tiny stories, then our 6th Online Flash Fest is this weekend! Info and tickets here.

Monthly Micro Shortlist – Feb 2024

Many congratulations to the 10 writers who made it through to the final round this month!

Our reading team are busy deciding on the winners of the cash prizes but the winner of the People’s Prize is over to you. The prompt word was LEAVES and the max word count was 175.

Read and vote below! Voting closes at 23.59 GMT on Monday 26th Feb.


All the Things He Left

His cup, which stains the sideboard with concentric circles that she doesn’t want to wipe in case she never hears the clatter of his spoon again. White, two sugars.

Spare keys. Dropped into the bowl beside the door, the one she’d thought too fancy for loose change and the odds and sods she still plucks from the sofa back and cupboards. 

His laugh. The way it explodes at the things she says and lingers in the air like the silence which follows the click of the door.His face. The way his smile slid and fell, half of him the same and the other dragged from the wreckage. 

His touch. The dent beside her on the mattress where he’d shroud himself. Like a crime scene, she’d joke, when she poked him awake, before the sirens were for him. She searches her body for fingerprints.


How We Will Leave

We will depart in triumphant glory, revelling in our bronzed age, soaring away like the horse-chestnut leaves and sycamore seeds blowing down the street, leaving the deep-rooted security of constancy for the unknown.

We will be scattered by our grandchildren chasing errant Labradors through the park-keepers crisp piles of gold and red and brown, 

We will evaporate in next door’s bonfire, blazing under rimy starlight, our glowing embers fading into the night. 

We will disappear in a gentle rotting away, our fabric absorbed by our resting place.

Whichever way we leave, remember us. 


In this version…

the ashes gust together, gathering into the urn. My hands clutch back the children’s grasp. We walk back through the formalities; hymns choke down our throats. You unburn. We get back into the car, go back into the house, where I shed black clothes like snake’s skin. The children crumple back to foetal positions in their beds.

Two weeks follow, like the blankness of snow.  Interspersed with implosions of grief. That still must happen, even in this version. But grief is only love with no place to go. In this version, the love is poured back in. Tears crawl up to our eyes. Our cheeks’ riverbeds evaporate. I hand back casseroles to our neighbours. The well-wishers eat their words.

The policewoman dribbles her tea into the cup. Her pitying face transforms to poker, as she returns to the doorstep. Knocks absorb into her knuckles. And you backpedal. Backpedal. Please Backpedal. Come back through the door. Peel off your cycling gloves. Suck a kiss from my lips. Swallow your vow of going for a quick ride.


Into The Wardrobe

Where the stale sweat in the fabric of your mother’s dress pulls your shoulders back and you feel her corset like grip to your throat. Sit still, she’d hiss as you stretched yourself mannequin straight at the thought of what would happen if you didn’t. It stinks of piss in here. Her winter coat pools at your thighs. Sometimes she brings visitors; you hear them puff like trains, the clink of their keys, their breath lingering on windowpanes with a damp sock smell of disappointment. 

Never look, your brother said, before he passed you a tenner and left. You close your eyes, slipping your feet into her fancy shoes, imagining a love that could hold you tall in kitten heels that purr like the nine lives she didn’t choose. She used to paint your nails. Hers are chewed and chipped. You feel for the varnish as you push against the wardrobe back. When you climb out, you’ll colour them Vixen.


It Always Was And Is

By the Old Hall is a sunken trench. It is full of leaves. The guidebook tells me this path has been carved by the footfall of many years. I think of how the leaves have not obliterated its presence. I imagine women who went about their daily lives, the stories they carried from dwelling to dwelling, women visiting women to birth a child, sharing gossip gleaned from listening under the eaves of the hall, dropping the words like pebbles in a pond. The guidebook talks of witch marks, the scorching of beams, women punished for their failure to protect, the ducking stool, and the scold’s bridle.

I am brought out of my reverie by a notification on my phone. I look at the message. It’s Barry asking where his clean shirt is, followed by an emoji of an angry face. I press delete, slip the phone into my pocket, and then carry on walking.


Leaves

Stumbling out, into the sunset, tear-blind and lost in the aftermath of you, thoughts ricocheting round my head like bullets. You. Her. Us. Over…when the face-slap colours startle me back, way too intense for deep midwinter. I find myself standing at the turn in the track, lifting my chin to the fiery sky where a naked sycamore claws at the crimson, its twig-sticky fingers scratching the air, telling our tale in dry-tipped semaphore. Tap-tap-tap, the sun too hot. Tap-tap-tap, burned itself free.

I sigh out loud in powdery clouds my gaze slumping low to the fallen-leaf hedgerow where under the branches piles and piles of brittle vermillion lie crisp and haunted or sugared white – fragments of fire that died in the fight, then, in slow, slow motion, I raise a boot, bring it down to release the sound… and suddenly. Suddenly, I’m laughing out loud, stamping and laughing like the child I was, laughing and dancing and kicking and spinning like the girl I was, like me before you.


Morning Runner

The soldier jogging by the Pēblinge Sø  says ‘Hi’. She smiles. When they reach the busy intersection at Gyldenløvesgade, he takes her hand; she’s not used to so many bicycles. She leaves him there. Back at the hotel, her husband is still asleep. She tugs the bag, packed last night, from under the bed, closes the door behind her, leaves him there. At the stall by Vesterport Station she pauses, looks at her ‘phone, nods to the blue-haired barista, time for one last strong coffee before she leaves to take the metro to the airport. She switches her ‘phone to silent. Will he even notice that her hairbrush and trainers have disappeared? She should have left a note. And is he still running, her Danish soldier with his flat open face and sparky blue eyes? Is he waiting for her by the Pêblinge Sø, waiting to see if she would keep her word? Or did he just shrug and sprint away? She should have sent a note.


Plenty of Sunlight

At the nursery, Rhonda hovers by a stand of poinsettias. Her son and his wife will think she’s coping if she decorates. 

‘Excuse me,’ she says to a man her age in a nursery uniform. ‘Will the red leaves last till Christmas?’

‘Brats,’ the man says, or at least that’s what Rhonda hears. 

‘Sorry?’ She glances around for naughty children.

The nursery man steps closer, touches a red leaf. ‘Bracts,’ he says quietly. ‘The leaves. They’ll last two, three months.’ He brushes his hands on his pants. ‘More if you’re a real green thumb.’

Rhonda shakes her head. ‘I’m not any kind of thumb. My husband was the gardener.’ And the awful sensation comes again, like being sucked down the plughole of a giant bath. She blinks and breathes.

‘You’ll do fine.’ The man’s eyes are bright against weathered skin. ‘Full darkness at night. Water every morning. Plenty of sunlight.’

‘Ah,’ she manages.

He holds out a poinsettia and she takes it, suddenly pleased. The pot is warm as summer against her palms.


Six Encyclopaedic Facts About Black Holes

  1. Black holes form at the end of stars’ lives.

Her life was 2 days 6 hours 46 minutes and 7 seconds. 

  • Gravity near the core of a black hole approaches infinity. This theoretically suggests infinite curvature of spacetime.

If I continue to refine her lifespan into milliseconds, nanoseconds etc, I could divide time infinitely. Does this theoretically suggest I could keep her alive indefinitely?

  • Black holes are huge concentrations of matter packed into tiny spaces.

Like a premature baby. Like the baby-shaped hole she leaves.

  • The gravitational influence of a black hole distorts spacetime. The closer you get to a black hole, reality as we know it, breaks down.

[See entry for grief]

  • Although black holes are theoretically infinite, quantum physics propose they emit thermal radiation and thus eventually shrink over astronomical timescales.

Time can be a healer, and this is both true and untrue. (Another quantum paradox?)

  • Black holes are among the most mysterious cosmic objects, much studied but not fully understood.

[See entries for love, grief, motherhood]


The Silence Of The Leaves

They look at my painting and see so much in it. Their voices fill the room with vacant clichés. Their eyes are gleaming, they’re holding the truth, they know me. In the soft rounded teeth of the edges, they say they see the fragility of the lives I carried inside me. They say that the two shapes are hugging,united forever. They say the colours are so telling. The yellowing tones, the blemished hues show untimely decay. In those yellow strokes, they hear my tears. Yet, the shades of green show youth. They say I’ll be ok because green is the colour of hope. They say painting that picture was therapeutic for me. And then, there are the grey, broken contorted stalks. They say those show how they were cut off from me. They think the dark red pot is my womb, that place that was not good enough for my baby twins to grow. They think they see so much. But I just wanted to paint the portrait of two leaves in a pot. 


Vote using the form below, or if you have any problems using it you can vote here: https://form.responster.com/RU13Iz

February 2024 Monthly Micro Longlist

Many thanks to everyone who sent us a story this month for the prompt LEAVES. We received 67 entries so the cash prizes are:

  • 1st Place: £73
  • 2nd Place: £48

Congrats to the writers of the following stories that have gone through to the longlist! No telling which is yours though! As always, there are some fantastic titles here!

Longlisted Stories

  • A Storm in a Tea Cup
  • All the Things He Left
  • Belittle v Be Nice v Beaten
  • Fall out
  • Glimpses
  • Handkerchief
  • Heart of Splintered Oak
  • His Last Gift
  • How We Will Leave
  • In this version…
  • Innocence
  • Into the Wardrobe
  • It Always Was and Is
  • Leaves
  • Leaves of Grass
  • Let Them Fall
  • Morning Runner
  • Plenty of Sunlight
  • Request to Allow Me to Continue Mothering My Little Blue Baby
  • Six Encyclopaedic Facts About Black Holes
  • The In Between
  • The Silence of the Leaves
  • Wilderness

We’ll be back with the shortlist for voting on Monday. Good luck everyone!

In the meantime, get polishing your stories for the Hermit Crab Prize at WestWord, which closes at the end of the month.

And get writing new words this weekend at our workshop, Mamas and Papas, looking at the crucial role parents play in stories.

Monthly Micro Shortlist – January 2024

We’re delighted to reveal our first 10 shortlisted stories of 2024. The prompt was BARK and the word count limit was 250 and we love what these 10 writers have done with it. No telling if you are one of them though as it has to remain anonymous for the final voting!

You can vote for your favourite using the form at the bottom of the page and voting closes at 23.59 GMT on Monday 29th January.


Barking up the Wrong Tree

Max found a quiet table and ordered a pint of best with a saucer. He was getting a few strange looks from the regulars, but the sign outside clearly stated that dogs were welcome. He’d never been on an internet date before. Jemma, the girl he’d been chatting to online, had suggested they meet up and go for a drink. She arrived ten minutes late and looked nothing like her photo. He reckoned it was ten years out-of-date. Still, his was taken when he wasn’t much older than a pup.

“Hi Jemma, over here,” he tried not to sound too eager.

“Oh!” she said, “oh gosh, I mean …wow, um… this is awkward.” She blushed furiously. “I didn’t realise you were a dog.”

Max sighed. He’d come across this sort of prejudice before. “I thought my profile picture was a pretty good clue,” he said sarcastically, “and you said you liked dogs.”

“I thought you were using an avatar, just being mysterious, and I do like dogs. You’re a handsome dog.”

Max struggled to stop his tail from wagging.

“I can’t see the problem. You said you like curling up in front of the telly to watch films, so do I,” he whined. It was obvious she was leaving. “And what about our long walks?”

“I’m sorry, it’s not you, it’s me. I’m looking for someone a bit more, um, human.”

She left. He slurped his beer from the saucer. Next time he’d use Tinder.


Burnt Ends

The thing about good brisket, my father used to say, as he spread tallow onto butcher’s paper and swaddled his meat-hunk like a baby, is that you need a good bark. I followed him around the whole day and watched him tend to the thing, poke and prod it, apply a salt and pepper coating with care, nurture the smoker, adding fresh wood chunks to the smoldering pile. A brisket is a responsibility, he said, unwrapping his dark, steaming beauty. He told me even jazz kind of came from somewhere else but barbeque was like crime movies — it was a distinctly American art form.

I remember fat running out when he cut the thing open; I remember the pink ring hidden just beneath the bark, rosy like a baby’s cheeks; I remember he always cut off four chunks of burnt ends: one for our dog, two for himself, and one for me; I remember the meat dissolving on my tongue, a soft, sweet smoke tickling the back of my throat. I remember thinking one day maybe I could set the bark and dad could guide my hand as I spread the tallow. I can’t quite mark the moment that thought became a memory, when hope turned wishful thinking, the whole thing sour and naive. But I never made brisket or ate one as good as his, never heard him say Just a little more pepper or Wrap it tighter there, son.


Clearing Out Dad’s House

It was the first time she’d woken without the sinking feeling of loss that, for days, had tightened her throat and made her shiver under the downy quilt.

In the grey dawn, Zoe wondered what had broken her sleep.

A bark.

Yes, she’d been dreaming of Crumble, the golden retriever who’d shared most of her
childhood.

That bark again. It sounded just like his voice when he’d jump around, trying to bite snowflakes.

Reaching toward the window, Zoe tugged back the curtain to reveal a snowy scene that hadn’t been forecast. She peered left and right looking for the dog, but nobody was in sight, though the joyful barking continued.

A snowdrift threatened to topple onto the mat at the front door.

Even with thick green army socks, Zoe’s feet were swamped in Dad’s old wellies, but she hadn’t brought more suitable footwear. She put on his grey woollen coat too and as she lifted the rough lapel to her cheek, was engulfed in the aroma of woodsmoke, nutmeg, and peppermint.

Smiling through tears, Zoe took a great step over the snowdrift and went out to find who was barking.

After ten minutes of fruitless wandering, her mind drifted into list-making mode. Empty the fridge. Find out when is bin day. Search for a local charity that will collect.

She was ready to tackle the dreaded chores.

As Zoe turned to close the front door, she saw faint pawprints alongside her own treads in the snow.


Excess Pruning

Let me tell you the story of a woman who uprooted herself from that God-forsaken town, from people with small minds and even smaller ambitions. Worked day and night, juggling study and bar-tending, balancing books and babysitting drunks. By twenty-five, she had transplanted herself into the silky, dark soil of the corporate world. By thirty, she owned her own company, had three hundred people working beneath her in various branches.

Success made her grow taller, closer to the sun. Yet, no matter how beautiful her natural foliage, she knew she could look better. She plucked her velvety green leaves and exchanged them for silver ones. She even added a few gold leaflets, which glinted like coins in the morning light. When her mother died, she had to go back to that half-horse town and meet the little people with their humdrum lives. She couldn’t understand why no one spoke to her. She sat alone at the wake; resplendent, but outcast. People passed her sandwiches out of politeness, smiled shyly, but didn’t engage in small talk.

Little did she know, it wasn’t because they had anything against her. They meant no harm at all. They didn’t speak because they simply didn’t recognise her.

Let me tell you a story of heart rot setting in. A wound in a bark is no small thing.


For Sale – Vacant possession upon completion, many original features

I pushed the door open. The house released stale air with a sigh. It was empty but not silent. Silverfish swam and swarmed behind wisteria wallpaper. Tiny claws scrabbled behind skirting boards. The scratched wooden floor stretched before me. I remembered the times I’d teetered out on ridiculous heels. I’d imagined making an entrance somewhere, heads turning, people noticing me.

I walked into the front room and ran a finger over the mantelpiece. Sunlight flowed through the stained glass panels and made tapestries of the threadbare rugs. Crimson roses and turquoise diamonds glowed briefly until extinguished by passing clouds. I drew a heart in the dust. A faint scent of bluebells welcomed me and I breathed in the familiar sweetness. Memory gifted me my mother’s smile as she sprayed me with cologne. I heard again her laughter as I sneezed.

Reluctantly I turned around to face the stairs. There it was. I could feel it in my chest, the reverberation of heavy thuds shaking the house as he tumbled. The scent of bluebells faded; replaced by the sour tang of beer and the echo of old Charlie’s frantic barking. A large tartan slipper caught my eye. It was still wedged between two broken spindles. Fragments of the past, muted and blurry but insistent as moths, buffeted against my face. Then the sound of a hesitant cough shattered the spell.

“Saying goodbye?” asked the woman with the clipboard.

“Laying a few ghosts,” I replied. I walked past her, into the sunlight.


Home. Work.

He can’t see me from where he’s standing. I’m in the perfect position, hidden behind the laminated table menu.

His blue striped shirt, which I washed and ironed yesterday, is sticking to his chest, the top three buttons all undone.

A flame theatrically explodes and lights up the kitchen area. He laughs; loud enough for everyone in the café to hear.

“Laughing,” I mouth to myself, as if speaking into a hidden microphone. I really can’t recall the last time I heard him doing that.

I lift my head and watch him twirl round, wiggling his shoulders and performing a couple of synchronised dance steps with a young barista.

I feel my lips move again: “Dancing!”

A new song starts up, asking who’s letting the dogs out? He holds a spoon in front of his lips and barks along to the tune. The young girl at the cash desk is also yapping, like an unleashed groupie. I catch myself grimacing, but manage to suppress the urge to growl.

He’s bouncing up and down now, waving his hands in the air, wagging an imaginary tail.

I slip a fiver under the mug and sneak away, unnoticed.

“How was work?” I ask.

“Boring,” he replies.

Pointing the remote at the TV, he settles deep into his armchair.

I let out a private sigh, switch on the small table light, open my book and stare down at the words.

We won’t speak again until it’s time for our hot chocolate.


How to Mend a Man with a Cover like Bark

They stretcher him across oceans of muddy battlefield; discarded flotsam.

Around him, everything, even blood and bone merge to mud, clagging his torn nostrils, his ripped mouth. Trees, their bark blackened; branch and trunk split, observe him. Quagmire of limbs, trunks, torsos. Man and nature, shattered.

He wakes in a hospital bed. Light pricking through bandages over his face. His breath comes in stutters. The torture of battle, irritates like crawling insects beneath his skin. The bed creaks as he moves, or perhaps his bones do. His bruised body triggers memories of falling from a tree as a child. Nineteen now, he’s child no more.

As bandages are removed, people turn away. In the mirror he comes face-to-face with the bogeyman. His eyes sting, hot tears dripping down the scarred pulp of what had been handsome features. He curls in on himself, a hibernating animal seeking escape.

The mask-maker comes to him. A vision emerging from shafts of light. She’s young, aproned in white. Her fingers tremble as they touch his crevassed face, tendrils seeking out the grain of the youth he’d been.

After she’s gone, he sleeps; dreams of running through woods.


She ties the wooden mask with care, making sure the edges don’t chafe. Her touch is sunlight. In the mirror his reflection raises a shaking hand to the mask. He caresses the gleaming wood, smooth under his touch, contouring cheek bone. A protective plaque covering his scars.

Half man, half tree. Able to face the world.


Lost in Time

One thirty in the morning. The world to ourselves. Just you, me, and our forever hug.

A full moon sends slivers of silvery light through the kitchen window blinds. But the truth in your eyes reflects the darkness of this moment. From nurturing you to nursing you, life’s rollercoaster is flat lining. But then… did I see you blink?

As the curtain comes down on our famous final scene, is there one more encore?

No… my lying eyes are taunting me, as yours fade like footprints in melting snow.

I hug you tighter still. Like the harder I hold will prevent you from slipping through my fingers towards memory.

But then… did I hear you sigh?

Or was it a wheeze, like the sound of an old set of bellows?

Now my ears join my eyes in cruel sensory acts of betrayal.

Your loss about to become my lost.

So, it’s time for the unrehearsed final speech; the epilogue to our life story. But the words get caught in my throat, losing their fight to escape against a tsunami of guttural sobs. I lean forward in your basket to do ‘noses’ one last time. Yours is cold like a winter’s morn, mine snivelling like a child having had its favourite toy confiscated.

One thirty-five in the morning. The world to ourselves. You, me, and your final breath hanging in the air like a bubble about to burst.

One thirty-six.

Just me.

And a personal apocalypse.


Public Notice of Removal

In the fall of 2020, they only fought at night in the park, and, because of that, Biz realized she was a light sleeper. It wasn’t like she didn’t try: earplugs, white noise, copious amounts of weed. All futile when they started hurling insults against the tree trunks and concrete benches. From them, she learned the neighborhood had bad acoustics and closed shelters. It’d go on until the cops came with their car doors that barked shut. The uneasy, muttered silence they brought was what she came to hate the most, her imagination clicking into black and white scenes of 60’s dogs and firehoses.

She should have moved as far from them as she could while staying indoors, but instead, she crept closer. First, the right side of her bed. Then, the kitchen chair. Next, the balcony door. The night she made it out onto the tiled veranda that overlooked the park, something had changed. During the in between of Biz’s waking and sleeping, the canopy of oak trees had been razed to the ground. The benches, removed.

The people, gone.

In the twilight, the twisted figure of a wolf, planted squarely on the remaining matted grass made her freeze. It did not howl, just stared out from oiled pupils and it took her minutes to realize it was plastic, the kind she’d seen on the Esplanade to ward off geese. Later, when she closed her eyes and chased sleep, all she could see was its snarling, silent face.


Sounds She Won’t Miss, Now Arthur Has Gone

That ever-present barking cough. The habitual sniffing, whether or not he had a cold. The tutting when he caught her with her hand in the biscuit jar. The clicking on and off of his ballpoint pen as he did the crossword. His tuneless humming. That ever-present barking cough. The crunching and chomping as he ate a packet of crisps. The clanging of spoon against teapot as he chivvied the teabag along. The scraping of his knife on the plate as he finished every last scrap of his dinner. The clattering from the kitchen, as he rearranged the contents of the dishwasher to his liking. That ever-present barking cough. His dreadful imitation of her Scouse accent. The drag of his slippers across the carpet. The creaking of the bedsprings as he sat down to remove his socks. The smacking of his lips before something good, including sex. The disappointed sighing after something bad, including sex. The ‘Sweet dreams, Duck,’ every night, before he turned off the light. His snoring. The beeping of machines, those last weeks in the hospital. The platitudes of strangers. That bloody ever-present barking cough.


Vote using the form below but if you have any issues with it, you can also vote here: https://form.responster.com/6HBtcX

Monthly Micro Longlist – January 2024

Many thanks to everyone who sent a story for this first contest of the new year. The theme was BARK and we received 53 entries. So the prizes are £58 for first place and £38 for second. The People’s Prize will be announced along with the results.

Congrats to the writers who made it through to the next round! No telling which is yours though as it has to remain anonymous all the way through.

Longlisted Stories

  • Anatomy of a Tree
  • Bark!
  • Barking up the Wrong Tree
  • Bloodsports
  • Burnt Ends
  • Catching a Wave
  • Clearing Out Dad’s House
  • Excess Pruning
  • For Sale – vacant possession upon completion, many original features
  • Home. Work.
  • How To Mend a Man with a Cover Like Bark
  • Lost in Time
  • Public Notice of Removal
  • Sounds She Won’t Miss, Now Arthur Has Gone
  • The Apple Doesn’t Fall
  • The Staffroom Pet
  • Welcome to Fabulous Canine Las Vegas

We’ll be back with the shortlist for voting on Monday. Good luck everyone!

In the meantime, you have until 31st January to submit to the FAITH edition of WestWord. Info here.

And if you’re writing a novel, our First Chapter comp closes next weekend and you can win a review of your first three chapters, synopsis and covering letter as well as a meeting with a literary agent to discuss your work! Info here.