We had 88 entries so first prize is £132 and second prize is £88, with the people’s prize to be decided. Thanks so much to everyone who sent us their words. We enjoyed reading them all. Well done to our longlist below. No telling which is yours though! The shortlist will be published on Monday.
Longlisted Stories
- A Withered Leaf Awaits its Immolation
- Charlie Cake
- Confetti
- Cycles
- Dry
- Emily Regrets Taking Her Gran’s Good Coat to be Dry Cleaned
- He Bows His Head and Thinks of Absent Friends
- Love Burns
- Mondays: 1960s
- Next Year Henry Will Go Back to Playing a Sheep, Says Mrs Bottomley
- Nothing Unusual
- No More Clowning
- Petrichor
- Snapshots from a Daylight Robbery
- Sun-Dried and Succulent
- The Boating Lake
- The Greatest Show on Earth
- The Reason I Hadn’t Cried for Six Months
- The Scarcity of Calcium i a Drought
- The Secret to Staying Human
- The Shallows
- Visitors on a Dead Planet
- What Humble Pie Really Tastes Like
- What We Saved From the Flood
- When the Taps Run Dry
- Why is the Rum Always Gone?
- Writer’s Drought
- X-rated X-tinction
- You will not always have a warning that these deadly, sudden floods are coming
Good luck everyone! We’ll have the shortlist on Monday.