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Poetry Prize 2024: Results

 

Winners

Short-list

Long-list

 


 

Here are the winners of the Fish Poetry Prize 2024, selected by Billy Collins, to be published in the Fish Anthology 2024.

Below you will find short biographies of the winners and the Long and Short Lists.

From all of us at Fish we congratulate the poets whose poems made it here. There were 2,164 entries and competition was very tough.

Billy Collins

Billy Collins.

The Fish Anthology will  be launched as part of the West Cork Literary Festival, (Marino Church, Bantry, West Cork – Monday 15th July – 18.30.) All are welcome!

 

 

FIRST PRIZE:

Brooke Hetter JamesNo, I am not a Robot (An Ekphrastic Poem of Sorts) by Brooke Herter James

Read Winning Poem

 

 

SECOND PRIZE:

Mary K MelvenyWriting About the Invisible by Mary K O’Melveny

 

THIRD PRIZE:

Rosalind Brackenbury

Early Tintoretto at the Accademia by Rosalind Brackenbury

 

 

 

HONORARY MENTIONS (In no particular order): 

Toby LittA Clarification by Toby Litt

 

 

Heidi WilliamsonThis poem asks where violence begins by Heidi Williamson

 

 

Philip Rösel BakerSmall White Sphere by Philip Rösel Baker

 

 

Josh GeffinUncle Tony Fishing, Muckross Lake by Josh Geffin

 

 

Marion QuednauHearsay by Marion Quednau

 

 

Cathy ClaydenTwo Hours Before Lone Ranger by Kathy Clayden

 

 

June Wedding in the West of Ireland:
North of Connemara, East of the Ocean’s Waves by Linda Nemec Foster

 

 

 

Brooke Herter James is the author of four poetry chapbooks, a children’s picture book and a poetry/prose/photography collection. Her poems have appeared in various journals and anthologies. She lives with her husband in a small village in the green mountains of Vermont.

Mary K O’Melveny, a happily retired labor rights lawyer of Irish descent, lives with her wife near Woodstock, New York. Mary’s poetry has appeared in numerous print and on-line literary journals and anthologies. Her recent collection, Flight Patterns (Kelsay Books 2023) was nominated for the Eric Hoffer Book Award. Merging Star Hypotheses (2020), her second book, was a semi-finalist for The Washington Prize sponsored by The Word Works. Coming soon: an on-line music-themed collection from Jerry Jazz Musician. For more: http://www.marykomelvenypoet.com.

Rosalind Brackenbury is English and lives in Key West with her American husband. Her poetry has been published by Taxus Press in the UK and Hanging Loose in the US. Her latest novel, “Bone Whispers” was published in February, 2024. She was Key West’s second Poet Laureate. She likes swimming, walking and exploring new places, and is leading a writing retreat in June 2024 at the Flores Retreat Centre in north-western Spain.

Toby Litt is a writer and environmental activist. His novels include Corpsing, Ghost Story, Patience and A Writer’s Diary. His run on the comic Dead Boy Detectives is the basis for the 8-part Netflix series. Toby is Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Southampton. He is a member of English PEN and editor of the XR Writers Rebel website. When he is not writing, Toby likes sitting doing nothing.

Heidi Williamson is a poet, writing tutor, and mentor. She runs a Reading Round group for the Royal Literary Fund sharing celebrated stories and poems with library users in Norwich. She also teaches for the Poetry Society, Poetry School, The Writing Coach, and National Centre for Writing. Through the magic of Zoom, she enjoys working online with poets world-wide. Her three Bloodaxe collections are Electric Shadow, The Print Museum, and Return by Minor Road. www.heidiwilliamsonpoet.com

Philip Rösel Baker is an Anglo-German writer living with his wife, Maria, under dark night skies near a remote hamlet in East Anglia.  As well as writing, he loves table tennis and plays in a village club every Monday. Recently, he has been intrigued to notice that the practice of Zen mindfulness improves his game as well as his poetry. He performs his poems regularly at the Soapbox sessions at the Steamboat pub in Ipswich.

Josh Geffin is a folk musician and writer from Dorset, based in London. He is currently working towards a masters in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London. Josh’s often playful poems explore themes of mindfulness, memory and belonging. His poetry has been published in The Rialto, Acumen, Allegro and The Friday Poem. He won second prize in the Jack Clemo Poetry Competition 2023 and has also been commissioned to write poems for Montcalm Hotels.

Marion Quednau lives on Canada’s unruly west coast, known for its protests, parades and off-the-path hiking. Her poetry has won numerous awards and appeared in Best Canadian Poetry 2019, (ed. Rob Taylor, Biblioasis). Her recent work includes the collection, Paradise, Later Years (Caitlin, 2018), and her short fictions, Sunday Drive to Gun Club Road (Nightwood, 2021), described as both "dark" and "hilarious" She thrives on notes of juxtaposition and surprise within the daily conundrum.

Kathy Clayden was born in Cambridgeshire, and was raised ‘on the move’ in Bedfordshire, Lancashire, Lincolnshire and Sussex. Into adulthood this morphed into living in countries across the globe as is reflected in her ‘portmanteau’ career. From childhood, Kathy has written and sketched. Poetic success in the 1990s and 2000s ended when the muse took a holiday. Kathy has worked hard to reconnect with her poetic self. She lives in Oxford, does ceramics, has a partner of 46 years.

Linda Nemec Foster lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan and was selected to serve as that city’s first Poet Laureate (2003-05). Her 12 collections of poetry include, The Blue Divide, The Lake Michigan Mermaid (2019 Michigan Notable Book), and Amber Necklace from Gdansk. Her book of flash fiction, Bone Country, was recently published. Foster has been honored with numerous awards including first prize in the 2023 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Contest sponsored by The Poetry Center (USA).

 


 

 

SHORT-LIST in alphabetical order. (57 poems. Total entry was 2,164) 

NAME

TITLE

 

 

Alinda Wasner

Little Did I Know of Birds and grasses

Andrew Murphy

The Why About That

Brett Ashley

Nocturne Mashup

brooke james

No, I Am Not a Robot

Christopher Watson

Eternity on Dean Street

Christopher Watson

Museo del Oro

Dena Fakhro

Not long after the Baghdad Café

Derval Walsh

Unsmiling

Di Slaney

Curse of the Orchard House

Di Slaney

Moat

Di Slaney

Finished knitting

Elise Ball

Daffodils

Gary V. Powell

Schwinn

Heidi Williamson

This poem asks where violence begins

Heidi Williamson

Wordle as fugue state

Ingrid Anderson

Repetitive motion

James Kelly

Mabeliss Takes Your Order

James Kelly

Finders Keepers

James Lowell

Boy in the Well

James Lowell

The Irish Lumper

Jed Myers

Spirit Letter to Norman

Jon Escher

The Third Floor

Josh Geffin

Uncle Tony Fishing, Muckross Lake

Judith Allnatt

Bubbles

Julian Wakeling

A Reprieve

Karina Holm

Birthday cake

karla k morton

Something

Kate Teves

The Fool

Kathy Clayden

Two Hours Before Lone Ranger

Kegan Swyers

Rejoice!

Lana Holman

Moment Interrupted

Lana Holman

Disappointed Angel

Linda Nemec Foster

June Wedding

Liz Kendall

A matter of trees and time

Lori Jakiela

One Day When He Was Dying

Marion Quednau

Hearsay

Martin Clayton

Insomnia

Martyn Golding

Very Sick

Mary O’Melveny

Writing About the Invisible

Olga Balaeva

A Date with Connemara

Patricia Osborne

The night carer

Patricia Sheppard

Sequelae

Philip Rösel Baker

Small White Sphere

Rekha Mehra

Shortchanging the Next Occupants

Rita Geil

Lyons Creek Trail

Róisín Ní Neachtain

I see you knew my small betray…

Rosalind Brackenbury

Early Tintoretto at the Accademia

Sabrina Wolfe

When I went back, nothing was the same

Sally Furneaux

Lost Song

Scott Dorsch

Your Eyes Were Fists and They Were Reaching

Simon Petty

Packing

Sinead McClure

Before, during and after my husband’s death, the birds came

stacey forbes

When West Virginia speaks its …

Stephanie Feeney

Pink Load

Steve Xerri

housefly metaphysics

Susanna Lang

A Clattering of Jackdaws

Tania Dain

Red Witch

Toby Litt

A Clarification

 


 

 

LONG-LIST in alphabetical order. ( 254 poems. Total entry was 2,164)

NAME

TITLE

 

 

Alan Coombe

The rigging shop

Alexandra Tyndale

Traces

Alinda Wasner

Little Did I Know of Birds and grasses

Alison Gorman

Cherry

Alison Powell

“This House Does Not Exist”

Allen Shadow

I Crossed You

Allie Wilson

Last Rites

Andrew Murphy

The Why About That

Andy Price

Larghetto

Angela Costi

A Revised History of the Balcony

Angela McCabe

Washingbay Lough Neagh

Anjanette Delgado

Sunset Therapy

Ann VanVolkenburgh Chang

Today At Running Club

Ann VanVolkenburgh Chang

This Is Just A Honey Do List

Anne Berkeley

Daphne

Anne Gerard

Insomnia Nocturne

Anne Gleeson

The Carer

Anthony Costello

Why Lee Brown Left

Attracta Fahy

1. Scythe

Avril Erskine

Barfly

Barbara Ford

Starbucks

Bill Richardson

Fact Fiction August 28 2017

Billy Fenton

Raven

Brett Ashley

Nocturne Mashup

brooke james

No, I Am Not a Robot

Bruce Meyer

Slippers

C. Mikal Oness

Take a Letter

Celia Chavez

The Borderlands

Charles Jennings

Nostalgia Is So Yesterday

Charles Jennings

Recurring Dream

Christopher Genzardi

Do Overs

Christopher North

Faint Echo of Myriad People Misremembered
from the Bhavagad Gita

Christopher Watson

Eternity on Dean Street

Christopher Watson

Museo del Oro

Christopher Watson

Salinas

Christopher Watson

Smoke Tree

Clare O’Reilly

Life Saver

Clare O’Reilly

Aobh

Colleen Newquist

Sunday Dinner

Damen O’Brien

Cement

Damen O’Brien

Heart in a Box

Damen O’Brien

Alarm

Deirdre Anne Hines

Gloria

Deirdre Anne Hines

Bigfoot

Deirdre Anne Hines

American Relatives

Deirdre Anne Hines

What The Raccoon Told Me

Deirdre Anne Hines

If you want to know the future look at the past

deirdre devally

Toes to The Daisies

deirdre devally

The Head Gardener Walks the Avenues, Glasnevin Cemetery

Dena Fakhro

Not long after the Baghdad Café

Derval Walsh

Unsmiling

Di Slaney

Curse of the Orchard House

Di Slaney

Moat

Di Slaney

Finished knitting

Dila Toplusoy Gunay

‘Anthropo–’ (human) + ‘–cene’ (new)

Donald Wildman

Night

Elisabeth Lorentzsen

Sexy Saturday

Elisabeth Lorentzsen

Printed Piece of Punditry

Elisabeth Murawski

Grounded

Elise Ball

Daffodils

Emma Wells

Lettered

EUGENE O’HARE

Things She Told The End of Life Nurse

EUGENE O’HARE

Eating a peach After Midnight

Faye Stevenson

Tinkle, Tinkle, Brittle Stars

Fiona Bennett

The Reset

Fiona Shillito

I said let’s be lovers

Frances Gapper

Tanked

Gary V. Powell

Schwinn

George Drew

Light Falls at a Murderous Angle

Geraldine Clarkson

Loophole

Geraldine Clarkson

A wind comes up from Coleridge

Gerda Stevenson

Wintering Bees

Gerda Stevenson

Coffined

Gerda Stevenson

Red Umbrella

Gerda Stevenson

One Word

Gerda Stevenson

Getting to Know You in Stoke

Gillian Dawson

On the Iona Ferry

Gloria Gonsalves

In The World of Censoring Words, the Chickens Will do

Gwynne Sawtelle

More Than One Way To Be A Bird

Hannah Morphet

Old friend

Heidi Williamson

This poem asks where violence begins

Heidi Williamson

Wordle as fugue state

Helen Arthur

My garden’s a picture

Hugh Dunkerley

Shaving My Father

Ingrid Anderson

Repetitive motion

James Kelly

Mabeliss Takes Your Order

James Kelly

Finders Keepers

James Lowell

Boy in the Well

James Lowell

The Irish Lumper

James Lowell

All Aboard

James Lowell

Clotheslines

James Lowell

The Coping Stone

James Lowell

The Last Eunuch of China

James Lowell

The Last Pencil

James Lowell

The Millpond

James Lowell

The Pheasant King

Jane Newberry

Shepherd’s Hey

Jed Myers

Spirit Letter to Norman

Jed Myers

Persistence Theory

Jed Myers

Can’t Be Far

Jed Myers

Refugee Bandit Birthday Rag

Jed Myers

In a Growling Wind

Jennifer Dunlop

A Song Inside

Jennifer Dunlop

Grace

Jenny Pollak

Things fall down

Jeremiah Ward

Cult

Jessamyn Fairfield

The Apartment

Jet McDonald

The thing about hitchhiking back from Amsterdam

John Paul Caponigro

Everyone In Your Dream Is You

Jon Escher

The Third Floor

Jonas Tschugguel

Lit Match

Josh Geffin

Uncle Tony Fishing, Muckross Lake

Josh Geffin

Heatwave In North London

Josh Geffin

Happening Upon Laurence Olivier (1907-1989)

Josh Geffin

Pens Down

Josh Geffin

Kin

Joyce Victor

Tick and Me

Judith Allnatt

Bubbles

Judith Allnatt

The Old Woman looks through a Rectangle

Judith Wozniak

Going to the Dogs

Judy Luttrell

Hopscotch

Julian Wakeling

A Reprieve

Julie Sumner

If You Teach a Man to Fish

Julio Trujillo

This Lime

Karen Tobias-Green

This House

Karina Holm

Birthday cake

karla k morton

Something

karla k morton

Riding the Line

Kat Glaser

Elaine’s POV

Kate Teves

The Fool

Katherine Hahn Falk

Wasted Time

Katherine Hahn Falk

Suppose

Kathy Clayden

Two Hours Before Lone Ranger

Katrina Moinet

Premature Procrastination

Kegan Swyers

Rejoice!

Kelley Pujol

Black shoes, green pants

Kelly Quinn Anderson

I’m Looking For Half of My Face

kerri cripps

When war breaks out in your kitchen

Kevin MacAlan

Comeragh, 1921

Kim Jensen

Breath Holding Contest

Kristen Mears

Daughters

Kurt Luchs

The Sign of Odysseus

Kurt Luchs

Seasonal

Lana Holman

Moment Interrupted

Lana Holman

Disappointed Angel

Laurie Holding

Bicycle Tricks

Layla O’Mara

the medicine grows close to the source of the illness

Lesley Sherwood

On the Street Where They Live

Linda Nemec Foster

June Wedding

Lisa Smith

Vintage

Liz Byrne

Boy of rain

Liz Kendall

A matter of trees and time

Liz Kendall

The Sutton Hoo hoard has been Temporarily Moved

Liz Kerr

Waving the Runner Home

Lollie Butler

A GHAZAL FOR THE LAST SHOW

Lori Grapes

Let’s Go Fishing

Lori Jakiela

One Day When He Was Dying

Lori Jakiela

After a Pitcher of Beer at Antlers Pub I Believed I was Brave

Lori Jakiela

The Lady in 38C

Lori Jakiela

The View During Takeoff

Lou Lesovitch

Christina

Louise DiLenge

Shattered Glass

Luz Leyden

TWISTED

Lynnda Wardle

Sailing on 31 Mile Lake, Quebec

Maggie Jackson

The in-between

Malcolm Povey

Too Late for Sorry

Malcolm Povey

Lessons

Malissa Priebe

the chickens dance

Mandy Pannett

Fugitives

Mandy Pannett

A Fourteenth Way of Looking

Marion Quednau

Hearsay

Mark de Rond

The Sickness

Martin Clayton

Insomnia

Martyn Golding

Very Sick

mary mulholland

Parents gaze at spaceboy

Mary Ruth Wallen

Coming Home

Mary Ruth Wallen

Saccade, Solitude, or My Own Philosophy of Time and Space

Mary O’Melveny

Writing About the Invisible

Matt Hohner

Dispatch from the Artist Residency

Matthew Zhao

We Are All Named After Someone

Mel Konner

Grand Canyon Dawn

Michael Swan

Names

Miriam O’Meara

Life Has Three Arrivals

Miriam O’Meara

It is Easier to be a Monk

Mran-Maree Laing

Bird. Sea. World.

Nicholas Hogg

The Blind Photographer

Nicolette Daskalakis

Landscape with Burning Car

Ninette Hartley

My Mother’s Sewing Box

Noelene Nash

Mealwords

Ockert Greeff

Speed Trap

Olga Balaeva

A Date with Connemara

Olga Balaeva

A Date with Connemara

owen lewis

My Partisan Grief

Paige Sandgren

White

Patricia Millner

Between Worlds

Patricia Osborne

The night carer

Patricia Osborne

The night carer

Patricia Osborne

The White Horse

Patricia Sheppard

Sequelae

Peter Archer

House Party

Philip Rösel Baker

Small White Sphere

Regina O’Melveny

AWAKE

Rekha Mehra

Shortchanging the Next Occupants

Renee Sgroi

each day i drive the edge of my own omphalos

Rhonda Collis

Dam

Rhonda Collis

Locket

Rita Geil

Lyons Creek Trail

Rita Geil

Lyons Creek Trail

Rita Geil

Party of One

Rob Phillips

TIMEWORN

Rob Phillips

Blackbird in Lorcan Blue

Roberta Beary

From that Moment in the Garden…

Rodney Aldrich

A Field Plowed Late

Roger Camp

A Model of Abstraction

Roger Camp

Pinched in the Metro

Róisín Leggett Bohan

anticipation of anaphylaxis

Róisín Leggett Bohan

Letter to a Lifeguard

Róisín Ní Neachtain

I see you knew my small betray…

Rosalind Brackenbury

Early Tintoretto at the Accademia

Sabrina Wolfe

When I went back, nothing was the same

Sally Furneaux

Lost Song

Sandeep Kumar Mishra

Immigration- A Tree Without Roots

Sarah Blizzard Robinson

Building Bridges in the Air

Sarah Davies

Flight from Bristol to Cork

Sarah Reader Harris

The Power of Flowers

Scott Dorsch

Your Eyes Were Fists and They Were Reaching

Scott Dorsch

Vanishings

Scott Dorsch

How Close We Are in the Blue Hour

Shoshanna Rockman

In sequence. In sequence. In sequence

Simon Petty

Packing

Simon Petty

The Worm Stones

Sinead McClure

Before, during and after my husband’s death, the birds came

Soledad Alfaro-Allah

DIG

stacey forbes

When West Virginia speaks its …

stacey forbes

Dream with wild rhubarb and a Mockingbird

Stephanie Feeney

Pink Load

Stephanie Feeney

A Mother Can’t Help but Eavesdrop at the Park

Stephanie Feeney

The Scene

Stephanie Feeney

Loon Song

Stephanie Saywell

In Which My Anger Introduces Herself as the next Bond Girl

Steve Xerri

housefly metaphysics

Susan Roney-O’Brien

Until Light Came

Susan Roney-O’Brien

Multiple Sclerosis

Susanna Lang

A Clattering of Jackdaws

Suzanna Fitzpatrick

Little Armoured One

Tania Dain

Red Witch

Tate Standage

honest skeletons

Toby Litt

A Clarification

V. A. Bettencourt

We Seem Like Misfits But

V. A. Bettencourt

Life Lessons from Floral Hyenas

Vasiliki Albedo

When I say I’m a firewalker I mean our bedroom’s burning

vincent Barton

Seahorse

Wayne Medford

I want to be seen naked by someone other than a trained healthcare professional

Willie Schatz

In the Georgetown Law Men’s Room

 

 

Fish Books

Fish Anthology 2024

Fish Anthology 2024

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
Fish Anthology 2023

Fish Anthology 2023

… 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


More

Fish Anthology 2022

‘… 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


More
Fish Anthology 2021

Fish Anthology 2021

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


More
Fish Anthology 2020

Fish Anthology 2020

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


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Fish Anthology 2019

These 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


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Fish Anthology 2019

Fish Anthology 2018

The 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


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Fish Anthology 2017

Fish Anthology 2017

Dead 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


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Fish Anthology 2016

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.


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Sunrise Sunset by Tina Pisco

Sunrise Sunset

€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, […]


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Fish Anthology 2015

Fish Anthology 2015

How 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.


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Fish Anthology 2014

Fish Anthology 2014

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


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Fish Anthology 2013

Fish Anthology 2013

The writing comes first, the bottom line comes last. And sandwiched between is an eye for the innovative, the inventive and the extraordinary.


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Fish Anthology 2012

A 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.


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Fish Anthology 2011

Reading 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


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Fish Anthology 2010

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.


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Fish Anthology 2009 – Ten Pint Ted

I 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


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Fish Anthology 2008 – Harlem River Blues

The 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


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Fish Anthology 2007

I 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


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Fish Anthology 2006 – Grandmother, Girl, Wolf and Other Stories

These 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


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All the King’s Horses – Anthology of Historical Short Stories

Each 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


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Fish Anthology 2005 – The Mountains of Mars and Other Stories

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


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Fish Anthology 2004 – Spoonface and Other Stories

From 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


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Feathers & Cigarettes

In 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


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Franklin’s Grace

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


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Asylum 1928

There 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


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Five O’Clock Shadow

I 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.


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From the Bering Strait

Every 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


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Scrap Magic

The 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


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Dog Day

Really good short stories like these, don’t read like they were written. They read like they simply grew on the page. – Joseph O’Connor


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The Stranger

The writers in this collection can write short stories . . . their quality is the only thing they have in common. – Roddy Doyle


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The Fish Garden

This 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.


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12 Miles Out – a novel by Nick Wright

12 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.


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Altergeist – a novel by Tim Booth

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.


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Small City Blues numbers 1 to 51 – a novel by Martin Kelleher

A 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.


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The Woman Who Swallowed the Book of Kells – Collection of Short Stories by Ian Wild

Ian 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?


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News & Articles

Fish Anthology 2024

Fish Anthology 2024 LAUNCH

11th June 2024
Monday 15th July at 6:30 Marino (Old Methodist) Church Bantry, West Cork, Ireland The Launch of the Fish Anthology 2024 was held in this charming old methodist church. Many of the authors published in the Anthology read from their work, to showcase sample of  the talent in this book.  We had a get together of […]

Poetry Prize 2024: Results

15th May 2024
  Winners Short-list Long-list     Here are the winners of the Fish Poetry Prize 2024, selected by Billy Collins, to be published in the Fish Anthology 2024. Below you will find short biographies of the winners and the Long and Short Lists. From all of us at Fish we congratulate the poets whose poems […]

Short Story Prize 2023/24: RESULTS

10th April 2024
Winners Short-list Long-list   On behalf of all of us at Fish, congratulations to all of you who made the long and the short-lists.  Apologies for the delay in this announcement. The 10 winners will be published in the Fish Anthology 2024. The launch will be during the West Cork Literary Festival, Bantry, Ireland – […]

Flash Fiction Prize 2024: RESULTS

10th April 2024
Winners Short-list Long-list   From all of us at Fish, thank you for entering your flashes. Congratulations to the writers who  were short or long-listed, and in particular to the 11 winners whose flash stories will be published in the Fish Anthology 2024. The launch will be during the West Cork Literary Festival, Bantry, Ireland […]

Short Memoir Prize 2024: RESULTS

1st April 2024
Winners Short-list Long-list   On behalf of all of us at Fish, we congratulate the 10 winners who’s memoir made it into the Fish Anthology 2024 (due to be launched in July ’24 at the West Cork Literary Festival), and to those writers who made the long and short-lists, well done too.  Thank you to Sean […]

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