Congratulations to the writers whose memoirs were short or long-listed and to the 10 winners.
The Ten Winners:
Here are the 10 winners of the Short Memoir Prize as chosen by judge David Shields, to be published in the Fish Anthology 2020
Our thanks to David Shields for his time and wisdom.
The Fish Anthology 2020 will be launched as part of the West Cork Literary Festival (July 2020).
All of the writers published in the Anthology are invited to read at the launch.
First prize is €1,000.
Second prize is a week at Casa Ana Writers’ Retreat
in Andalusia, Spain, and €300 travel expenses.
Third prize is €200.
1 Buck Rabbit by Noelle McCarthy (New Zealand)
Self-aware but un-self-conscious. Gets powerfully at the vast depth of our little failures and too-small high of too-few triumphs.
2 Inner Core by Miki Lentin (London)
Great opening paragraph. Narrative slides effectively in and out of time, and the voice feels authentic.
3 The Road to Salamanca by John Martin Johnson (Yorkshire, UK)
Fleshy, plainly stated, strongly worded. Details are used here like barbs—effectively and personally. He writes without cliche about family, loss, and guilt.
COMMENDED: HONORARY MENTIONS
Roman Quartet by Tom Finnigan (UK)
The protagonist is remarkably likeable, and the story is great.
Catch Me If You Can by Julia Motyka (New York)
Candid and intelligent.
Brief Notes to My Brother’s Other Sisters by Lisa K. Buchanan (San Francisco)
Effective use of second person, uncommonly portraying a slightly less uncommon situation.
Moulded by Phil Cummins (Kildare, Ireland)
Strong beginning. Nicely colloquial throughout.
Regeneration by Laura-Blaise McDowell (Dublin)
Powerful examination of obsession
Leg Man by Alan McCormick (Wicklow, Ireland)
Honest. Breezy. Funny.
What Are Young Men to Rocks and Mountains? by Maán Jalal (Dubai)
Lovely essay on how writing does/doesn’t heal.
(alphabetical order)
There are 40 memoirs in the short-list. There were 916 entries in total.
Title |
First Name |
Last Name |
Woman-Child |
Penelope |
Atkinson |
My Guardian Uncles |
Myriam |
Bastian |
Staying After |
Harry |
Bauld |
Telling |
Anneke |
Bender |
Blood and Roses |
Mary |
Black |
Brief Notes to My Brother’s Other Sisters |
Lisa K. |
Buchanan |
Non-standard |
Achas |
Burin |
Wives Kill People Like You |
Christine |
Connor |
Moulded |
Phil |
Cummins |
Scenes From A Rebellious Infancy |
Sigrid |
Daniel |
Safe Crossing |
Penelope |
Douglas |
Who Dies First? |
Doris |
Ferleger |
Jumpy Jewish Female Seeks … |
Doris |
Ferleger |
Roman Quartet |
Tom |
Finnigan |
The Blue Wallpaper |
Eva |
Hibbs |
Grafted Mandarin |
Allison |
Hong Merrill |
The Infinite Curse of a Paralysed Heart |
BARBARA |
HUNT |
What Are Young Men to Rocks and Mountains? |
Maan |
Jalal |
The Road To Salamanca |
John Martin |
Johnson |
Inner Core |
Miki |
Lentin |
To Do |
James |
Lough |
The Day the Pope Saved My Life |
Michael |
Lowis |
Rectory Girl |
Deborah |
Mack |
The Blue Breast is Banished to Outer Space |
S. A. |
MacLeod |
Fiendish |
Bill |
McBean |
Buck Rabbit |
Noelle |
McCarthy |
Leg Man |
Alan |
McCormick |
Regeneration |
Laura-Blaise |
McDowell |
Catch Me If You Can |
Julia |
Motyka |
Days With Ulanova |
Fiona |
O’Connor |
The Contract |
Jim |
O’Connor |
Eloise |
Jenny |
Ochera |
The Poker |
JeanAnn |
Pollard |
Turn, Kaleidoscope |
Alyson |
Porter |
Grandview |
John Michael |
Ruskovich |
November 1983 |
Knight |
Son |
Apparitions |
Cathy |
Stacchini |
A Crow |
Paul |
Tylak |
Elon’s Dragon |
Donna |
Ward |
It’s Always an Argument |
Amy |
Wright |
(alphabetical order)
There are 128 memoirs in the long-list. There were 916 entries in total.
Night Worker Sleeping
Title |
First Name |
Last Name |
Growing Pain |
Elizabeth |
Allen |
Woman-Child |
Penelope |
Atkinson |
The Ginger |
C.E. |
Ayr |
Made in Luton, Big in Japan |
Camilla |
Balshaw |
My Guardian Uncles |
Myriam |
Bastian |
Staying After |
Harry |
Bauld |
1956 |
James Tully |
Beatty Jr. |
Infinite Paradise |
Dianne |
Beeaff |
Telling |
Anneke |
Bender |
Blood and Roses |
Mary |
Black |
The Blooding |
David |
Brennan |
Spitting Distance |
Jill |
Brown |
How I became |
Rosemary |
Brydon |
Brief Notes to My Brother’s Other Sisters |
Lisa K. |
Buchanan |
Non-standard |
Achas |
Burin |
Tondo Manilla 1986 |
Jo |
Burnell |
Swimmers in the Dark |
Maximilien |
Callimanopulos |
Thursday’s Child |
Andrew |
Campbell |
The Mack and Peaches |
Yvonne |
Campbell |
17 Steps to Four and a Half |
Nicola |
Cassidy |
Wives Kill People Like You |
Christine |
Connor |
Scratching the Surface |
Frances |
Corkey Thompson |
Life, Abridged |
Catherine |
Coyote |
Part of the Madness |
Martin |
Cromie |
Moulded |
Phil |
Cummins |
Scenes From A Rebellious Infancy |
Sigrid |
Daniel |
The girl on the trimaran |
Abby |
Day |
Safe Crossing |
Penelope |
Douglas |
Epic Passions in Flamborough Road |
Gerard |
Duffy |
The Postman’s Tumour |
Annette |
Edwards-Hill |
How Not To Get Pregnant |
Julie |
Everton |
Water, Yes, That |
Rebecca |
Ewan |
Number THirteen |
Alan |
Falkingham |
The last international virgin of Berlin |
Ian |
Fenwick |
Who Dies First? |
Doris |
Ferleger |
Jumpy Jewish Female Seeks … |
Doris |
Ferleger |
Auto |
Susan |
Finlay |
Roman Quartet |
Tom |
Finnigan |
Castletown-kraut-haven |
Hannah |
Fitz |
“In America, They Cut Your Head Off”: |
Michael |
Fleming |
A Fool’s Errand |
Jaclyn |
Fowler |
Susan Sontag: Epigraphs for a Memoir |
Thomas |
Frick |
After what happened… |
|
Geoghegan |
Manchurian Love Story |
Jeffrey |
Gray |
Closet |
Margaret |
Grundstein |
The Bella Boys |
George |
Harding |
The last Tango |
Gail |
Hartman |
The Blue Wallpaper |
Eva |
Hibbs |
All the women are ‘Mommy’ |
Catherine |
Higgins-Moore |
A Bit of Craic – extract from WIP |
Esther |
Hoad |
Retreat to the Trees |
Sara |
Hodgkinson |
That Was |
Euwan |
Hodgson |
Grafted Mandarin |
Allison |
Hong Merrill |
The Infinite Curse of a Paralysed Heart |
BARBARA |
HUNT |
Trixie |
Ian |
Inglis |
What Are Young Men to Rocks and Mountains? |
Maan |
Jalal |
The Cure |
Kent |
Jarratt |
The Road To Salamanca |
John Martin |
Johnson |
Cartographies of the Heart |
Caitriona |
Kelly |
When I Was A Boy |
Colin |
Kerr |
The Scar |
Sarah |
Lawson |
Inner Core |
Miki |
Lentin |
All the Other Small Devotions |
Sue |
Li |
The Mother Gin Stole |
Alexandra |
Loeb |
To Do |
James |
Lough |
The day the pope saved my life |
Michael |
Lowis |
Seven Meals With My Father |
Carinne |
Luck |
Don’t Waste Food |
Lili |
luo |
What made all the difference |
Ann |
Luttrell |
They talk about the gift of sight…. |
Judith |
Macdonald |
Rectory Girl |
Deborah |
Mack |
The Blue Breast is Banished to Outer Space |
S. A. |
MacLeod |
Catching My Death |
Lynn |
Macwhinnie |
Breaking The Cycle |
Kate |
Manning |
Planetary Spread |
Caragh |
Maxwell |
Homecomng |
Robert |
Maxwell |
Fiendish |
Bill |
McBean |
Buck Rabbit |
Noelle |
McCarthy |
The One That Got Away |
Alan |
McCormick |
Leg Man |
Alan |
McCormick |
Hugh |
caroline |
mccoy |
JUST ANOTHER DAY ON THE PLANET: |
Deborah |
McCutchen |
Orange People Tea |
Jim |
McDonald |
Regeneration |
Laura-Blaise |
McDowell |
The Sun always Shone |
Veronica |
McGivney |
Crossing Borders |
Fiona |
Meehan |
Snake Ball |
Holly |
Menino |
The Man Who Would Be John Irving |
Meredith |
Meyers |
Her Body, At Rest |
Julia |
Motyka |
Catch Me If You Can |
Julia |
Motyka |
Father |
Shira |
Nayman |
Tessi |
Shira |
Nayman |
The Fortuneteller |
Eileen |
O’Connor |
Days With Ulanova |
Fiona |
O’Connor |
The Contract |
Jim |
O’Connor |
No Place, Home. |
Jack |
O’Donnell |
Oklahoma! |
Maureen |
O’Neill |
Eloise |
Jenny |
Ochera |
War is not Suitable for Children |
Judith |
O’Connor |
Let Me Take You Down ‘Cause I’m Going |
James |
Patterson |
The Poker |
JeanAnn |
Pollard |
Turn, Kaleidoscope |
Alyson |
Porter |
To Hitch Or Not To Hitch |
catryn |
power |
The Salmon |
adrienne |
Quinn |
What Do We Need To Know |
Denver David |
Robinson |
The Merry-Go-Round |
Elizabeth |
Rockwell |
Keys |
Cynthia |
Rogerson |
Grandview |
John Michael |
Ruskovich |
Please don’t die in California if you’re an Afghan |
Bashir |
Sakhawarz |
Traveling With Demons |
Habie |
Schwarz |
Home |
Nancy |
Slattery |
Hull 1973 – 74 |
Ruskin |
Smith |
November 1983 |
Knight |
Son |
Tarah |
Alexander |
Sparrow |
Apparitions |
Cathy |
Stacchini |
Nude Beach |
Patricia |
Stacey |
Night Worker Sleeping |
Royston |
Tester |
One Thousand Cranes |
Mary |
Thompson |
Take Two |
Vivian |
Thonger |
REMAINS |
Lily |
Todd |
A Crow |
Paul |
Tylak |
Elon’s Dragon |
Donna |
Ward |
Scenes from a Colonial Education, Johannesburg 1973 |
Lynnda |
Wardle |
Remembering My Visit To Louise Bourgeois |
Charles |
Williams |
The Worst City in America |
Jonathan |
Wolf |
It’s Always an Argument |
Amy |
Wright |
Find Daddy |
Gabra |
Zackman |
The Bolsheviks Are Coming |
Boryana |
Zeitz |
Vivid, astute, gripping, evocative. These stories utterly transported me. – Sarah Hall (Short Story)
In the landscape of emotion and folly, Flash writers are a fearless lot – these stories prove it. – Michelle Elvy (Flash Fiction)
… combining the personal and particular with the universal, each touching in surprising ways … experiences that burn deep, that need to be told. – Sean Lusk (Memoir)
Strong poems. First place is a poem I wish I’d written! – Billy Collins (Poetry)
More… a showcase of disquiet, tension, subversion and surprise …
so many skilled pieces … gem-like, compressed and glinting, little worlds in entirety that refracted life and ideas … What a joy!
– Sarah Hall
… memoirs pinpointing precise
feelings of loss and longing and desire.
– Sean Lusk
What a pleasure to watch these poets’ minds at work, guiding us this way and that.
– Billy Collins
‘… delightful, lively send-up … A vivid imagination is at play here, and a fine frenzy is the result.’ – Billy Collins
‘… laying frames of scenic detail to compose a lyric collage … enticing … resonates compellingly. … explosive off-screen drama arises through subtly-selected detail. Sharp, clever, economical, tongue-in-cheek.’ – Tracey Slaughter
Brave stories of danger and heart and sincerity.
Some risk everything outright, some are desperately quiet, but their intensity lies in what is unsaid and off the page.
These are brilliant pieces from bright, new voices.
A thrill to read.
~ Emily Ruskovich
I could see great stretches of imagination. I saw experimentation. I saw novelty with voice and style. I saw sentences that embraced both meaning and music. ~ Colum McCann
MoreThese glorious pieces have spun across the globe – pit-stopping in Japan, the Aussie outback, Vancouver, Paris, Amsterdam and our own Hibernian shores – traversing times past, present and imagined future as deftly as they mine the secret tunnels of the human heart. Enjoy the cavalcade. – Mia Gallagher
MoreThe standard is high, in terms of the emotional impact these writers managed to wring from just a few pages. – Billy O’Callaghan
Loop-de-loopy, fizz, and dazzle … unique and compelling—compressed, expansive, and surprising. – Sherrie Flick
Every page oozes with a sense of place and time. – Marti Leimbach
Energetic, dense with detail … engages us in the act of seeing, reminds us that attention is itself a form of praise. – Ellen Bass
MoreDead Souls has the magic surplus of meaning that characterises fine examples of the form – Neel Mukherjee
I was looking for terrific writing of course – something Fish attracts in spades, and I was richly rewarded right across the spectrum – Vanessa Gebbie
Really excellent – skilfully woven – Chris Stewart
Remarkable – Jo Shapcott
The practitioners of the art of brevity and super-brevity whose work is in this book have mastered the skills and distilled and double-distilled their work like the finest whiskey.
More€12 (incl. p&p) Sunrise Sunset by Tina Pisco Read Irish Times review by Claire Looby Surreal, sad, zany, funny, Tina Pisco’s stories are drawn from gritty experience as much as the swirling clouds of the imagination. An astute, empathetic, sometimes savage observer, she brings her characters to life. They dance themselves onto the pages, […]
MoreHow do we transform personal experience of pain into literature? How do we create and then chisel away at those images of others, of loss, of suffering, of unspeakable helplessness so that they become works of art that aim for a shared humanity? The pieces selected here seem to prompt all these questions and the best of them offer some great answers.
– Carmen Bugan.
What a high standard all round – of craft, imagination and originality: and what a wide range of feeling and vision.
Ruth Padel
I was struck by how funny many of the stories are, several of them joyously so – they are madcap and eccentric and great fun. Others – despite restrained and elegant prose – managed to be devastating. All of them are the work of writers with talent.
Claire Kilroy
The writing comes first, the bottom line comes last. And sandwiched between is an eye for the innovative, the inventive and the extraordinary.
MoreA new collection from around the globe: innovative, exciting, invigorating work from the writers and poets who will be making waves for some time to come. David Mitchell, Michael Collins, David Shields and Billy Collins selected the stories, flash fiction, memoirs and poems in this anthology.
MoreReading the one page stories I was a little dazzled, and disappointed that I couldn’t give the prize to everybody. It’s such a tight format, every word must count, every punctuation mark. ‘The Long Wet Grass’ is a masterly bit of story telling … I still can’t get it out of my mind.
– Chris Stewart
The perfectly achieved story transcends the limitations of space with profundity and insight. What I look for in fiction, of whatever length, is authenticity and intensity of feeling. I demand to be moved, to be transported, to be introduced into other lives. The stories I have selected for this anthology have managed this. – Ronan Bennett, Short Story Judge.
MoreI sing those who are published here – they have done a very fine job. It is difficult to create from dust, which is what writers do. It is an honour to have read your work. – Colum McCann
MoreThe entries into this year’s Fish Short Story Prize were universally strong. From these the judges have selected winners, we believe, of exceptional virtue. – Carlo Gebler
MoreI was amazed and delighted at the range and quality of these stories. Every one of them was interesting, well-written, beautifully crafted and, as a short-story must, every one of them focused my attention on that very curtailed tableau which a short-story necessarily sets before us. – Michael Collins
MoreThese stories voice all that is vibrant about the form. – Gerard Donovan. Very short stories pack a poetic punch. Each of these holds its own surprise, or two. Dive into these seemingly small worlds. You’ll come up anew. – Angela Jane Fountas
MoreEach of the pieces here has been chosen for its excellence. They are a delightfully varied assortment. More than usual for an anthology, this is a compendium of all the different ways that fiction can succeed. I invite you to turn to ‘All the King’s Horses’. The past is here. Begin.
– Michel Faber
Literary anthologies, especially of new work, act as a kind of indicator to a society’s concerns. This Short Story collection, such a sharp and useful enterprise, goes beyond that. Its internationality demonstrates how our concerns are held in common across the globe. – Frank Delaney
MoreFrom the daily routine of a career in ‘Spoonface’, to the powerful, recurring image of a freezer in ‘Shadow Lives’. It was the remarkable focus on the ordinary that made these Fish short stories such a pleasure to read. – Hugo Hamilton
MoreIn a world where twenty screens of bullshit seem to be revolving without respite … there is nothing that can surpass the ‘explosion of art’ and its obstinate insistence on making sense of things. These dedicated scribes, as though some secret society, heroically, humbly, are espousing a noble cause.
– Pat McCabe
It’s supposed to be a short form, the good story, but it has about it a largeness I love. There is something to admire in all these tales, these strange, insistent invention. They take place in a rich and satisfying mixture of places, countries of the mind and heart. – Christopher Hope
MoreThere are fine stories in this new anthology, some small and intimate, some reaching out through the personal for a wider, more universal perspective, wishing to tell a story – grand, simple, complex or everyday, wishing to engage you the reader. – Kate O’Riodan
MoreI feel like issuing a health warning with this Fish Anthology these stories may seriously damage your outlook – Here the writers view the world in their unique way, and have the imagination, talent, and the courage to refine it into that most surprising of all art forms the short story. – Clem Cairns.
MoreEvery story in this book makes its own original way in the world. knowing which are the telling moments, and showing them to us. And as the narrator of the winning story casually remarks, ‘Sometimes its the small things that amaze me’ – Molly McCloskey
MoreThe stories here possess the difference, the quirkiness and the spark. They follow their own road and their own ideas their own way. It is a valuable quality which makes this collection a varied one. Read it, I hope you say to yourself like I did on many occasions, ‘That’s deadly. How did they think of that?’ – Eamonn Sweeney
MoreReally good short stories like these, don’t read like they were written. They read like they simply grew on the page. – Joseph O’Connor
MoreThe writers in this collection can write short stories . . . their quality is the only thing they have in common. – Roddy Doyle
MoreThis is the first volume of short stories from Ireland’s newest publishing house. We are proud that fish has enabled 15 budding new writers be published in this anthology, and I look forward to seeing many of them in print again.
More12 Miles Out was selected by David Mitchell as the winner of the Fish Unpublished Novel Award.
A love story, thriller and historical novel; funny and sad, uplifting and enlightening.
You only know who you can’t trust. You can’t trust the law, because there’s none in New Ireland. You can’t trust the Church, because they think they’re the law. And you can’t trust the State, because they think they’re the Church And most of all, you can’t trust your friends, because you can’t remember who they were anymore.
MoreA memoir of urban life, chronicled through its central character, Mackey. From momentary reflections to stories about his break with childhood and adolescence, the early introduction to the Big World, the discovery of romance and then love, the powerlessness of ordinary people, the weaknesses that end in disappointment and the strengths that help them seek redemption and belonging.
MoreIan Wild’s stories mix Monty Python with Hammer Horror, and the Beatles with Shakespeare, but his anarchic style and sense of humour remain very much his own in this collection of tall tales from another planet. Where else would you find vengeful organs, the inside story of Eleanor Rigby, mobile moustaches, and Vikings looting a Cork City branch of Abracababra?
More