A huge thank you to everyone who sent their novel opening for this contest. We have been transported to hundred of different places and connected with lots of unique narrators.
We are excited to reveal the longlist of 45 stories, from which we will now choose our longlist of 10. Well done to everyone who submitted and congratulations to the writers of the following novels. Don’t tell anyone the title of yours if it appears here as all reading is done anonymously!
Longlisted First Chapters
- A Thousand Tiny Disappointments
- An Unexpected Donation
- Angels in the Architecture
- Bargaining with Grace
- Birdspotting in a Small Town
- Bleeding Josephine
- Bring Them To Light
- Caged on Caiseas (from “A Terrible Racket”)
- Countdown
- Days Between The Hours
- Diet Happy
- Dirty Love Story
- Down Came a Blackbird
- Foxglove Summer
- Game On
- Grub
- Howl
- Leaving Home
- Mary
- Midnight Malachi
- Northern Boy
- Saudade
- Sideslip
- The Blue Bar
- The Candidate’s Husband
- The Choices We Make
- The Devil and Miss Mills
- The Girl Who Escaped From Zanzibar
- The Grey Man
- The Limehouse Blues
- The Man Who Got Out Of Japan
- The Martyrdom of Jonathan Keeler
- The Mirador
- The Russian and Mrs Greene
- The Sinful Mile
- The Slighting of Livia Rathbone
- The Trickster
- The West in Her Eyes
- We Have Ourselves
- Where the Blue Winds Blow
- White Light Pictures
- Who Moved the Sodding Hedgehog?
- Wildwood
- Woodlands Road
- Write Me a Murder
We will announce the shortlist in April. Good luck!