Hello! I’m Dan Powell, an award winning writer of short-fiction.

I was born in the West Midlands in the early Seventies, and worked as an English Teacher for nearly ten years before going part time to study for an MA in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. My short stories have been widely published both online and in print, appearing most recently in the pages of The London Magazine, The End: Fifteen Endings to Fifteen Paintings, Being Dad: Short Stories about Fatherhood, Bath Short Story Award Anthology 2015, Unthology 7, and New Short Stories 8.

In January 2013 I received a Carve Esoteric Award for my short story ‘Storm in a Teacup’, while ‘Half-mown Lawn’ won the Yeovil Literary Prize for short fiction and is included in The Best British Short Stories 2012. I also won second prize in the Bath Short Story Award 2015 for my story, ‘Dancing to the Shipping Forecast’ In 2017, my short story ‘The Ideal Husband Exhibition’ won 3rd Prize in The London Magazine short story prize. My debut collection of short fiction, Looking Out of Broken Windows, published by Salt, was shortlisted for the Scott Prize and long listed for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award and the Edge Hill Prize. In 2021 I was awarded my PhD in Creative Writing for research and writing exploring the use of preclosure theory in the writing of short stories.

Since 2012 I have led writing workshops both in schools and at literary festivals across the UK. In June 2015 I delivered a series of workshops on encouraging disengaged writers at the NATE National Conference and received an Author’s Foundation Grant from the Society of Authors and a Royal Society of Literature Brookleaze Grant to develop my writing. I have been a First Story writer-in-residence for over ten years, helping young writers to develop their creative writing skills in schools across the East Midlands.