The shortlist for The Willesden Herald Short Story Prize 2014 is up and I am thrilled to be able to say that my short story Rip Rap is one of the ten tales that made this year’s list. I have been entering the Willesden Prize each year since about 2011, so this shortlisting is very much the achieving of a long held goal. It’s great to know that whatever the result, my story will be appearing alongside the other nine shortlisted stories in this year’s edition of New Short Stories.

From the New Short Stories blog:

‘There were 381 entries and reducing them to ten wasn’t easy at all. Many brilliant stories had to be omitted. It was fascinating, as always, reading each and every submission. When you think of all the craftsmanship, thought and sheer imagination there is out there, it’s quite heartening.

Short List 2014

• Piercings by Jo Barker Scott
• Such is her Power by Joan Brennan
• The Beekeeper’s Daughters by Gina Challen
• Ward by Nick Holdstock
• Rock Pools by CG Menon
• Rip Rap by Dan Powell
• Postman’s Knock by Angela Sherlock
• Rash by Megan Taylor
• The Stealing by Lindsay Waller-Wilkinson
• Cotton-Fisted Scorpions by Medina Tenour Whiteman

The first and runners-up prizes will be announced by the judge, Charles Lambert, on April 16 at a special event in BAR Gallery in Willesden. New Short Stories 8, the anthology containing all the stories above, will be launched at the same time.’

You can check out the biographies of all the shortlisted authors over on the New Stories Blog. They make for impressive reading and I am genuinely pleased to find myself shortlisted alongside such obviously talented people.

I’m very much looking forward to results night and the launch of New Short Stories 8, not least because the Liars League will be performing extracts from all the shortlisted stories. Can’t wait to see what they do with my words. And I can’t wait to read the other nine stories on the shortlist. Exciting stuff.