Fish Writers

Kurt Ackermann

Kurt Ackermann’s stories, memoir, magazine articles and opinion pieces have been published in North America, the UK and South Africa.

His recent story THE STAYING GROUND appears in the anthology From Jo’burg to Jozi: Stories about Africa’s infamous city published by Penguin Books in 2010. His short story (THE THEME FROM) LOVE STORY, earned recognition as a runner-up for the 2008 Fish One-Page Prize, and appears in the Fish Anthology, Harlem River Blues. He recently wrote several episodes for the SAFTA Award-winning television documentary series, A Country Imagined, about art, landscape and identity in South Africa, commissioned by the SABC and presented by Johnny Clegg. He is currently working on a 12 hour documentary film on apartheid due for release in 2014.

American by birth, Kurt has called South Africa home since 2000.

Áine Greaney

Áine’s short story, The Drop Outs was published in The 2002 Fish Anthology.

County Mayo author Aine Greaney’s second novel, Dance Lessons (Syracuse University Press, 2011) will be released on April 1, 2011. The book is contemporary story of a transatlantic, American-Irish marriage and the lies and secrets that immigrants tell. Author, Erin Hart, describes the book as ‘a subtle and intriguing story about regret and redemption.’ Read more about Áine’s work on her website, www.ainegreaney.com

Here’s a little more about Áine:  Born and raised in County Mayo, Ireland, Áine Greaney is a writer and editor living on Boston’s North Shore. She is the author of the novel The Big House and the short story collection The Sheep Breeders Dance. In addition, she has written several award-winning short stories and numerous feature articles for the Irish Independent, The Fish Anthology, the Boston Globe Magazine, The Merrimack Valley Magazine, Creative Nonfiction, Books Ireland, Sunday Irish Tribune, Natural Bridge, Cyphers, IMAGE Magazine, the Literary Review, among others. She has also won or been shortlisted for a number of writing awards

Áine’s story, The Drop Outs, can be read in our Short Stories to Read Online pages

Jo Cannon

In 2007 Jo Cannon’s story, Insignificant Gestures was published in the 2007 Fish Anthology. Encouraged, she began to submit more widely, and her stories have since been published in Cadenza, the New Writer, the Reader, Myslexia and Brand, among others.  Recently Jo’s work was included in the Route anthology, Book at Bedtime, andWillesdon Herald’s New Writing 4 and she was a Brit Writers Award finalist in 2010. Jo’s debut collection, also called Insignificant Gestures will be published by Pewter Rose Press in November 2010. In her other life Jo is a Sheffield G.P, married with two teenage sons.

Natalie McNabb

Natalie McNabb lives and writes in Newcastle, Washington, USA. McNabb’s “Afters” was short-listed in the 2006 Fish Short Story contest and “ADHD: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder” was a winner in the Fish June Micro-Fiction Showcase 2007. Her following publications included poetry and fiction for InterSECTIONS, Bricolage Literary and Arts Journal and Virtual Writer.  McNabb’s One Thumb Width Left of the Highest Oak Bough is currently available inEtchings 7 from Ilura Press. Forthcoming publications include a fictional piece, Revisions, for an anthology by Catalyst Book Press on the birthparent-parent-child adoption triad and View from a ’77 Chevy Scottsdale” which will appear alongside Joyce Carol Oates, Ha Jin, Peter Straub and James Frey in Robert Starwood’s brainchild, Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or Fewer. The book is set for release by W.W. Norton & Company on November 1, 2010 and is now available at Amazon.com,BarnesandNoble.com or W.W. Norton & Company. A clip on the book and this shortest of short fiction forms is available at MSNBC.com. McNabb can be contacted via her website at http://nataliemcnabb.com.

James Lawless

James Lawless was born in Dublin and divides his time between Kildare and West Cork. His short story, The Halloween Party, was included in the first Fish anthology,The Fish Garden, 1995. First novel, Peeling Orangespublished in 2007. A play, The Fall, was performed in the Source Arts Centre, Thurles, the same year. His story, Jolt, was shortlisted for the Willesden Prize and appeared in New Short Stories 1, edited by Zadie Smith (London/ New York,Willesden Heral, 2007). Awards include the Scintilla Welsh Open Poetry competition in 2002 and the Cecil Day Lewis Play Award 2005 for What Are Neighbours For? Most recent short stories, Brown Brick, in The Stinging Fly’s new anthology, Let’s be alone together, and The Kiss in Sunday Tribune’s New Writing Page (04-01-09). A second novel, For Love of Anna was published in 2009 as was his book on modern poetry, Clearing The Tangled Wood: Poetry as a way of seeing the world,  ‘ . . . a linguistic ballet, learned and lively on behalf of poetry.’ John Montague. James also writes book reviews for Laura Hird’s online New Review and for the Irish Times and The Stinging Fly magazine.

James may be contacted on Amazon.com at his writer profile page.

Martin Malone

New Island has just published Martin’s collection, ‘Deadly Confederacies & Other Stories’ (2014). His short stories have been published on two occasions in Fish Anthologies. Black George in the 1997 Fish Anthology and Come to me Sweet Dementia in the 1999 Fish Anthology

Martin Malone is the author of five novels: Us (Poolbeg Press – winner of the John B. Keane/Sunday Independent Literary Award and shortlisted for the Irish Fiction Award 2001); After Kafra (Poolbeg Press – optioned for TV); The Broken Cedar(Simon & Schuster UK – IMPAC nominated); The Silence of the Glasshouse(New Island).

He is a winner of RTE’s Francis MacManus Short Story Prize and also of the K250 Killarney International Short Story Prize. Twice shortlisted for a Hennessy Award. Longlisted Sunday Times EFB Private Bank Short Story Award 2012.RTE Radio Drama has broadcast three radio plays. He has also written a memoir, ‘The Lebanon Diaries’.

Sunday Times EFB Private Bank Short Story Award 2012 longlisting. His first short story collection, ‘The Mango War and Other Stories’, appears in 2009. Stand UK (Leeds University) has accepted a brace of his short stories for publication in 2010. Currently reading for an M.Phil in Creative Writing at Trinity College.

Wes Lee – Runner-up in The 2008 Fish Short Story Prize

Born in Lancashire, of Irish descent, Wes Lee emigrated to NZ with her parents as a child in the 70’s, and has spent her time living, travelling and working in both Hemispheres. She was a runner-up in the Fish Short Story Prize 2008. In the same year she won a number of awards, including, the Over The Edge New Writer of The Year Award, in Galway; The Short Fiction New Writers Competition (University of Plymouth Press); The Flosca Short Story Prize, judged by David Means; The Bronwyn Tate Memorial Award, in New Zealand, and was awarded 2nd place in The Kate Braverman Prize in San Francisco. Recent writing highlights include being chosen as a finalist for The Brit Writers’ Awards 2010, in London. Winning the 2010 Rodney Writes Premier Award, in New Zealand. Shortlisted for The Walter Scott Prize 2010, in London, (Salt Publishing); and The 2010 William Soutar Writing Prize, in Scotland, judged by novelist and short story writer Ron Butlin. She has been shortlisted for numerous short story awards, including The Brian Moore Short Story Award, in Belfast, and has been published widely in Literary journals and Anthologies. More information can be found at her website:  www.weslee.co.nz

Marc Phillips – overall winner of the 2004 Fish Short Story Prize

Marc Phillips (Winner: Fish Short Story Prize 2004 with The Mountains of Mars and published in the 2005 Fish Antology), was named Notable Writer of the Year in 2004, and has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and inclusion in Best American Short Stories anthologies. In 2007, his “Caye Caulker Tides” placed in the Fish/Crime Writers Association Fish-Knife Award, and “Different Than Any Day So Far” received editor’s choice in the Raymond Carver Short Story Contest. He regularly publishes fiction, poetry, articles and essays in the US and abroad.

Telegram Books will release Marc’s debut novel, Fifty Stone Men, in the Spring of 2009 (edited by the Fish Editorial Service).

Seamus Heaney, Matthew Sweeney,  & the winner of the 11th Fish Short Story Prize Marc Phillips, after the launch of the Fish Anthology  at the West Cork Literary Festival 2005.

Paul Blaney

Paul was a finalist in the 2003 Fish Short Story Prize, with his story Man In a Wardrobe. This was published in the 2004 Fish Anthology, Spoonface & Other Stories. His two most recent stories have appeared in the 2004 and 2005 anthologies from Biscuit Publishing. He has recently shifted his base of operations to New Jersey (which turns out to be much like The Sopranos) while continuing to co-organise Tales of the DeCongested www.decongested.com a monthly short story reading event at Foyles bookshop in London. Work goes on with his novel, Breeders, with frequent time-outs to make money and write short stories.

Sarah Hilary

Sarah Hilary won the Fish Criminally Short Histories Prize in 2008 with her story about Lizzie Borden, Fall River, August 1892. Her short fiction can be found inSmokelong Quarterly, The Fish Anthology 2008, The Best of Every Day Fiction I and II, and in the Crime Writers’ Association Anthology, MO: Crimes of Practice. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2009 for her story, Flood Plain. In 2010 she was shortlisted and Highly Commended in the Seán Ó Faoláin contest. Sarah is currently working on a crime novel. Her agent is Jane Gregory of Gregory & Company

Michele McGrath

Michele McGrath had her short story, Kilmainham Dawn published in the 2008 Fish Anthology. Her childeren’s book, A Night in the Manx Museum, was published by Lily Publications, 2008. Michele’s two stories, Son of Lir and Ghost Diaries are due to be published by Acorn Press in 2011

For more information on Michele’s work: www.michelemacgrath.co.uk

Celia Bryce

Celia Bryce writes short stories and drama. Her short fiction has featured in Stand Magazine; The Cork Literary Review; and The Mail on Sunday amongst others. She has had a number of stories broadcast on Radio 4 and is a core fiction contributor to Women’s Weekly. Headlines and Other Growing Pains (Biscuit Publishing) is a collection of her short fiction and is due for publication in October 2005. Her radio play The Skategrinder (based on Skateblades published in the Fish Anthology 2000) won The Richard Imison Award, 2003. She has written drama for children, for medical education purposes and her short play, Magpies, was performed throughout the summer of 2005 at the Beehive Theatre, Dingle, County Kerry.

She has an MA in Creative Writing and was Writer in Residence for the MA 2003-2004 at Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne. She is currently working on a children’s novel.

Cliff Chen

Stewed chicken with rice and peas, is how he’d describe his childhood in Trinidad. Formative and mouth-watering. Schooled in Ireland, where he took time out from a medical degree to begin writing seriously, he gained publication in Black Rose Issue 1 (1998), 3rd Prize in the Golden Pen Award (1999) and was published in the Fish 2002 Anthology (Rainflies).

His short story, Rain Flies was published in the 2002 Fish Anthology. He has also been short- and long-listed in other competitions; including Fish (2001, 2004) and the Irish News International Short-story competition (1999) He has written 2 novels and has just graduated with a first class Honours Degree in Psychology from Edinburgh University. (Together with a British Psychology Society prize for Undergraduate Psychology.) All Cliff’s stories now come with 10% extra psychoanalysis – free of charge.

Polly Clark

She is a poet and the author of two poetry collections. Her second, Take Me With You, was published by Bloodaxe in November 2005 and was short listed for the TS Eliot Prize and is a Poetry Book Society Choice.

Since having her short story, At the Water Cooler, published in the 2004 Fish Anthology, she has been commissioned by Comma Press to write a series of linked short stories for an anthology which will be published in April 2006. To see more of Polly’s work go to her website: www.pollyclark.co.uk

Linda Cracknell

Life Drawing launched my writing career – it was shortlisted for the 1998 Fish Short Story Prize but had to be withdrawn because it won the Macallan/Scotland on Sunday short story competition in 1998. It was my first published story. In 2000 it became the title story of my short story collection published by Neil Wilson’s 11:9 imprint which was shortlisted for the Saltire First Book Award. Since then I have written two plays for Radio 4, had a go at writing a novel (unfinished) and have nearly completed a second collection of short stories. From late 2002 to late 2005, I have been writer in residence at the poet Hugh MacDiarmid’s last home – Brownsbank cottage, south of Edinburgh. The writing life in its varying incarnations of readings, running workshops, and writing articles has also taken me to New York, Nairobi, and Norway!

Selma Dabbagh

For me, it all started with Fish.

Fish published the first piece of fiction I wrote, Aubergine, in the2004 Fish Anthology, having been selected as a Finalist for the 2003 Prize. I was a Finalist (and Editor’s Choice) with Fish the following year with Beirut-Paris-Beirut and published in the2005 Fish Anthology. Fish also nominated this story for the Pushcart Prize. That year English PEN selected me as their nominee for the David TK Wong Prize for Short Fiction 2005. My work has also appeared in Qissat, Short Stories by Palestinian Women J. Glanville (ed.) (2006, Telegram) and several of my stories are scheduled to be published in anthologies in 2007, including the British Council publication New Writing 15 M. Gee and B. Evaristo (eds.) (forthcoming June 2007, Granta).

Paul Bassett Davies

Paul was shortlisted for the 2004 Fish Short Story Prize and the One Page Story Prize. Both his stories, Tommy the Voice and Imaginary Friend for Hire, feature in the2005 Fish Anthology. He recently wrote the screenplay for the feature animation film The Magic Roundabout and is currently writing the screenplay for a film starring 1960’s counterculture heroes, The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, featuring Fat Freddy’s Cat. Paul founded the Crystal Theatre, acclaimed for pioneering multimedia work in the 1970s and 80s. Two of his one-man shows were Perrier Award finalists at the Edinburgh Festival. He has written for television, radio and the stage, directed stage productions, short films and music videos, and been a radio producer. He was the vocalist in punk band Shoes For Industry. He has also worked as a minicab driver, a gardener, and a DJ in a strip club. He is a ventriloquist with his own doll (Sailor Boy).

Carys Davies

Carys Davies won second prize in the inaugural 2002 Orange/ Harpers&Queen short story competition and second prize in the 2005 Asham Award. She was a runner-up in the 2005 Bridport Prize and in the 2006 Fish Short Histories Competition.

Other stories were short-listed for the 2005 Fish Short Histories Competition and the 2006 Fish One-Page Prize.

Her stories have appeared in prize anthologies, in ‘The London Magazine’ and in various U.S. literary magazines. Her first short story collection, ‘Some New Ambush’ is due out in October from Salt. ( www.saltpublishing.com ).

She lives in Lancaster with her husband and four children.

Katy Darby

What Katy did next … Since coming third in the Fish Short Story Prize 2003, Katy has placed in several more short story and poetry competitions, including the Royal Society of Literature’s V.S. Pritchett Prize, and has had her stories published in Carvezine (Sepia, www.carvezine.com, January 2005 issue), Pulp.net (The King of Hearts, www.pulp.net, June 2005 issue) and the New Writer magazine. Samuel French have also published two of her plays, Open Secrets and Half-Life. She begins an MA in Creative Writing (Prose) at the University of East Anglia in September 2005, where she will hopefully complete her second novel.

Stephanie Dickinson

She has lived in Iowa, Wyoming, Texas, Louisiana and now in New York. Her poetry and fiction appear in Cream City Review, Green Mountain Review, Chelsea, Descant, Sub-Terrain, Fourteen Hills, Nimrod, Iron Horse Review, Inkwell, Ontario Review, Water Stone, Columbia Journal, McGuffin, among others Along with Rob Cook, she publishes and edits the literary journal Skidrow Penthouse.

Her Half Girl recently won the Hackney Award (Birmingham-Southern) for best unpublished novel of 2002. It will be published this year by Spuyten Duyvil. Fire Maidens was third place winner in Fish Publishing’s 2004 short story contest, and published in the 2004 Fish Anthology SWINE PRINCESS was a finalist in Fish’s 2005 first novel contest. In October her story A Lynching in Stereoscope will be reprinted in BEST AMERICAN 2005 NONREQUIRED READING edited by Dave Eggers.

Mia Gallagher

Mia Gallagher was delighted that her story, Found Wanting, was included in the 2002 Fish Anthology as Editor’s Choice – and even more delighted the following year when, All Bones, was chosen as a runner-up and published in the 2003 Fish Anthology. Since then she’s had another story featured in Carve Magazine and in November 2004 secured a deal with Penguin Ireland for her first novel, HellFire – due to land on all good bookshelves in September 2006. Most recently she won the Start Chapbook Fiction competition; three of her stories (including All Bones) will be published in a limited-edition volume in October 2005. Mia is now working on her second novel.

David Gardiner

My story Letting Go was the second prize winner in 2001 and published in the 2002 Fish Anthology. It centred on a confrontation between an elderly former Nazi war criminal and a man who had dedicated his life to hunting him down, for reasons that turn out to be more complex than they at first appear. Being among the prize winners affected my life in two ways. Firstly there was the social and personal side. It led to my “coming out of the closet” as a writer, meeting other writers, making acquaintances and forming friendships, and gaining the confidence to think of myself as one of the worldwide community of people afflicted with this compulsion to tell stories. This began at the award ceremony in Bantry, but continued into my week at Anam Cara and my life in London afterwards. It changed my self-image and gave me the permission to take myself a little more seriously as a writer. Secondly, and consequently, other people began to take my writing more seriously, and at the beginning of this year the small press publisher Bluechrome/Boho in Bristol accepted for publication a collection of twenty-three of my short stories under the title The Rainbow Man and Other Stories. Reviews for this collection have been very positive, but sales have been slow. Everybody tells me that it is almost impossible to sell short stories, but that is what I actually want to write.

Vanessa Gebbie

Published in The 2009 Fish Anthology with her short story The Return of the Baker, Edward Tregear, in The 2007 Fish Anthologywith her short story Words from a Glass Bubble and in the 2006 Fish Anthology with her one-page story Simon’s Skin.

Vanessa Gebbie won Second Prizes at both Fish and Bridport in 2007. Her First Prizes include Per Contra (USA), The Daily Telegraph, Willesden Herald, Guildford Book Festival, The Paddon Award and Cadenza Magazine.

Her short stories have been widely published, anthologised, translated into several languages, broadcast on BBC radio and handed out on London Underground.

She has won awards for flash fiction, and regularly judges literary short fiction competitions.

Her debut collection is Words from a Glass Bubble (Salt Publishing 2008). A collection of flash fiction, Mood Swings is forthcoming in 2009.

Vanessa is contributing editor for a forthcoming guide on writing short fiction. All the aforesaid either to, for, by, with or from Salt Publishing.

She says: “Nothing packs quite the same punch as well written short short stories. Their potential to amaze both writer and reader is immeasurable.”

Other competition successes include First Prizes in the 2007 Paddon Award at Exeter University, (Judge Rory MacLean), Willesden Prize 2006 (Judge: Zadie Smith), Asham/Charleston Small Wonder Festival Slam 2006, Guildford Book Festival/BBC Southern Counties 2006 (Judges: Jane Wenham-Jones and Elizabeth Buchan), Cotswold Prize 2005 (Judge: Katie Fforde), Cadenza Magazine 2005,. and Runner Up Prizes in Fish One Page 2006, Flashquake 2007, Good Housekeeping Magazine 2004 and 2005 (Judge: Alexander McCall Smith). Her work has been long listed for The Bridport Prize, short listed twice for the Fish Short Story Prize, and for the Asham Award. It won a Highly Commended Prize in the London ‘Writers of the Year Competition’ 2006. She teaches Creative Writing, and particularly enjoys working with those on society’s margins. She has her own magazine for writing by those whose lives have been touched by addiction, atwww.tomsvoicemagazine.com .

Her first novel has this in common with the Alpine black salamander, African and Asiatic elephants, Baird’s beaked whale and the white rhinoceros: record-breaking gestation. Vanessa’s novel, “The Coward’s Tale” (written in Ireland at Anam Cara over 4 years) was published by Bloomsbury UK in Nov 2011 and  Bloomsbury USA in the spring of 2012.

For further information: www.vanessagebbie.com

Jules Horne

Karl Iagnemma

was overall winner of the Fish Short Story Prize 1997 with his story Dog Days which was the title story of The 1997 Fish Anthology. His book of short stories, On the Nature of Human Romantic Interaction, was published in 2003 by the Dial Press. The book’s title story is currently being developed as a feature film by Warner Brothers Pictures. Karl’s short stories have received numerous awards, including the Paris Review Plimpton Prize, first place in the Playboy college fiction contest, and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. His writing has appeared in Tin House, SEED, One Story, and Zoetrope, and been anthologized in the Best American Short Stories, The Best American Erotica, and Pushcart Prize collections. Karl currently works as a research scientist in the mechanical engineering department at the M.I.T. He’s completing a novel about an ill-fated scientific expedition to upper Michigan in the 1840s. He is currently one of the judges of the Fish Short Story Prize 2005

Rosemary Jenkinson

Since being published in The Fish Anthology 2003 with her short story The Backroom Rebellion, Rosemary Jenkinson has had a collection of short stories published, Contemporary Problems Nos 53 & 54, by Lagan Press in 2004 and has been commissioned to write a play for Rough Magic Theatre Company. She has also, fortunately, broken free of the Civil Service.

Ann Jolly

I’ve continued to be involved as a writer in various prisons – Dartmoor, Winchester, Lewes and Wealstun where there is a culture of poetry and people create whole worlds with no more than pen and paper and what is inside their heads – as all writers do. With the prisoners we uncovered raw truths, mined lived-in lives and explored what it is like to hit rock bottom and come up again. This work confirmed for me that writing is liberating and an agent of transformation.

I’ve also taught creative writing in two local universities but mostly, I’ve been writing my own stuff, some short stories and, of course, The Novel.

Rory Kilalea

Rory has written in a desultory and sometimes compulsive fashion since he was a kid some unmentionable years ago. He writes poetry (finally published) short stories, (published) plays (performed), films (some made), radio scripts (dreadful) and anything that tries to make money, but never really does. He thinks that he may have it cracked with his novel called the ‘Disappointed Diplomat’. This novel may get him arrested for innuendo, depravity, slander and general self-abuse. He has also written a series of children’s folkloric books, which are not selling well at all. When people actually do read his work, they feel pity and give him awards- twice the Caine Prize for African writing and of course the Fish nomination, which he was hoping to win because he was in overdraft. He didn’t. But the Fish nominated story ‘Zimbabwe Boy’ launched Rory’s flaccid career, and it has been on the BBC as a radio play, and also at the African Festival in London and then moved to the National Theatre in 2005. .But it got him into terrible trouble , because as our president Mugabe has said on numerous occasions, Zimbabwe is the only country in the world where there were no homosexuals until the filthy white colonialists came and infected them with their depravity and things like that. Now, in-between his languishing in prison (with other depraved black dissenters who remember our president from his heady days of same sex incarceration),he teaches literature, writing and drama. The reason is simple – he is too old to be a rent boy. Even Fish asked him to teach writing in 2005, but there has been a terrible silence ever since then. He also directs theatre- the latest being the fabulous financial loss with five star reviews at the Edinburgh Festival called Sing! Zimbabwe. He is thus re entering the Fish Prize and offering 45% of the prize money to the judges as an incentive. Which comes to the kernel of this man. When he is serious and depressed, he writes deeply meaningful stories ranging from gender discrimination, sex and African farmers who have been thrown off their lands because they did not like the blacks. When he has taken his pills, he writes stories about black farmers who do not like the whites and throw other black farmers off their land. He can be witty, sensuous, rude and he is normally ejected from parties for drinking too much. He is rather a weird chap, but than no Zimbabweans are normal.

Val G. Lee

I live and write in Hastings. This autumn I have a novel published by Onlywomen Press called Diary of a Provincial Lesbian’, which reflects my life on the south coast. I also write a regular column for the lesbian magazine, Velvet, and poetry and fiction reviews for Diva’. I’ll be reading and running writing workshops at the Proudwords Festival in Newcastle and the York Lesbian Arts Festival in October. www.vglee.co.uk

Pam Leeson

Since being published in the Fish Anthology, From the Bering Strait in 1999, I have won the BBC Alfred Bradley Award for radio writing with the play There’s Me, David, Chelsea, Charlene, Scott and Bianca. It was broadcast in the same year. In 2001 had the play The Unbearable broadcast by BBC Radio 4 and again by BBC Radio 7 in 2005.

In August 2005 my play A War in the Morning was put on at the Royal Exchange Studio in Manchester as part of their new writing season Blue. This was one of the monologues for which I received an Arts Council bursary to write a collection. I’ve almost finished writing them and will soon be looking to get them published. The joys! Still writing poems and stories and plays and half a novel. (Oh what Id give for the other half!) Still very pleased and proud to have been in a Fish publication. Merci.

Lily Mabura

Lily Mabura is a Kenyan writer currently pursuing a PhD in Fiction and Africana Literature at the University of Missouri-Columbia, USA . Her story “Man in Ultramarine Pajamas” was a runner-up in the 2006 Fish Short Story Prize and will be appearing in the 2007 Fish Anthology. Several of her short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in literary journals like PRISM international, Wasafiri , and G21 – The World’s Magazine . Other publications include a novel, The Pretoria Conspiracy (Focus Publishers, Nairobi , 2000), and three children’s books: Saleh Kanta and the Cavaliers (Phoenix Publications, Nairobi , 2005), Seth the Silly Gorilla ( Phoenix , 2002), and Ali the Little Sultan (Focus, 1999). She is currently seeking an agent and publisher for her first short story collection Sweet Sugarcane Secrets.

Sheila MacAvoy

Born in New York City, a descendent of Famine Irish peasants who hit the Big Apple in the 1850’s; educated in local schools, eventually earning a Law Degree. Worked in Los Angeles, California, as a lawyer in the aerospace industry by day and wrote fiction by night, a thoroughly schizophrenic existence. Published here and there, including appearance in the 1998 Fish Short Story Prize collection as a choice of the editor and their Short Histories Anthology, All the King’s Horses. Exit Aerospace. Some stories are forming a chrysalis which, if subjected to the right temperature and humidity, should morph into a Gold Rush saga, told through its many dreamers, past and present. View from work table is of the pink and white sandstone Santa Barbara Mission, a mile and a half distant, set against the chaparral of the coast range.

Phillip MacCann

Phillip has been a critic for the Guardian and The Spectator. His writing has one a number of prizes including the Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize for travel writing. He wrote about Finland where he worked for the British Council. His highly acclaimed short-story collection, The Miracle Shed, received the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and he was selected by The Observer as one of the twenty-one writers of various disciplines from across the world, for the new millennium.

Marie MacSweeney

Published in various outlets throughout Ireland including The Sunday Tribune, Stet, Drumlin, Phoenix Irish Short Stories (1998) and Fish Publishing (1996). Prize-winner in many national competitions and won the Francis MacManus Short Story for Radio award in 2001 with a story called Dipping into the Darkness.

In May 2004 I published a collection of short stories Our Ordinary World and Other Stories. My first poetry collection, Mother Cecily’s Music Room was published by Lapwing, Belfast in May 2005. Louis and Louise Was shortlisted in the Fish Short Story Prize 1996 and published in the Anthology of that year, The Stranger and Other Stories.

Molly McCloskey – Winner of the Inaugural Fish Short Story Prize

Molly McCloskey was born in Philadelphia and grew up in Oregon. She moved to Ireland in 1989. Having spent ten years on the west coast of Ireland, she now resides in Dublin. She is the author of two critically acclaimed short story collections – Solomon’s Seal (Phoenix House, 1997), and The Beautiful Changes (Lilliput Press, 2002). Her short stories have won a number of prizes, including Ireland’s RTE/Francis MacManus Award and the inaugural Fish Short Story Award. She was also the recipient of the Ireland Fund of Monaco’s bursary and was Writer-in-Residence at the Princess Grace Irish Library in Monaco. In 2009, she was shortlisted for Ireland’s Davy Byrne Short Story Award. Her first novel, Protection, was published by Penguin in 2005. Novelist Colum McCann called Protection “Funny, intelligent, empathetic and disquieting all at once, Protection is a fascinating debut novel. A comic dissection of contemporary Ireland from one of our finest writers.” The novel and the two collections of stories have been translated into German and are all published by Steidl. While living in Ireland, she has worked as a free-lance journalist, fiction writer and creative writing teacher, and is a regular contributor to the Irish Times and theDublin Review. In 1996, she co-founded, with two other women, the Sligo Rape Crisis Centre. From 2006-2007, she worked in Kenya for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs for Somalia. She is currently completing a non-fiction work on schizophrenia and the family, and is Writer Fellow at Trinity College Dublin for the 2009/2010 academic year.

Morgan McDermott

A 2004-05 Illinois Arts Council Fellow in Prose, Morgan McDermott’s fiction has most recently won awards from the literary magazines Meridian, Swink, Speakeasy, The Bellingham Review, Phoebe, and a grant from the Association of Writers and Writing Programs. His story Tow was a finalist in the 2003 Fish Short Story Prize and was published in the Fish Anthology of that year, Fathers and Cigarettes & Other Stories. It also received the Dana Award for Short Fiction and will appear in issue #41 of the journal StoryQuarterly.

Andrew McIntyre

Originally from Scotland, Andrew spent the first six years of his life in Johannesburg, South Africa. Educated at numerous boarding schools, he attended universities in Britain, Japan, and the United States. He holds masters degrees in Economics and Comparative Literature.

Having travelled for much of his life, working at various times as a lecturer, sailor, construction worker, bookseller, and chocolatier, he currently resides in San Francisco. His story, Wet Dreams of a Dirty War, was published in the 2002 Fish Anthology. He has published stories in several magazines, most recently in The Taj Mahal Review, The Copperfield Review, Penny Dreadful, Pindeldyboz, Babel, and Gold Dust Magazine.

Andrew’s short story collection, The Short, The Long and The Tall, was published by Merilang Press.  The collection includes Snuff, the sequel to Dirty War, which was a prize winning story in Gold Dust Magazine.

The Short, The Long and The Tall on Amazon.com

Kath McKay

‘Kath Mckay’s story ‘Bus’ appeared in the 2005 Fish anthology. Since then  she has had a fan letter, published poetry in magazines and anthologies, been shortlisted in two poetry competitions, given performances with a graphic artist, reading her stories and poems on the subject of teeth (once to an audience of dentists), been rejected for a job she decided she didn’t want, and a large grant she did. She has continued to mentor African writing students online (www.crossingborders-africanwriting.org <http://www.crossingborders-africanwriting.org> ) and continued to craft short stories while devouring them alongside crime novels. Her collaboration with Yorkshire and Finnish writers on the theme of Water ( Interland ) www.intland.net <http://www.intland.net>   will result in a Smith-Doorstop publication in 2006.

The Fish anthology did not change her life. But that weekend in West Cork had a luminous quality . She took an old friend to the launch. The friend, bowled over by the Staircase to the Sky, and swans on Bantry Bay, said ‘I thought the Fish anthology would mean three people in the back room of a pub. This is Something Else’. Frank Delaney commented that everything about the Fish competition had the quality of ‘grace’. As a lover of Flannery O’Connor stories, Kath is deeply interested in this quality. And knowing that some people thought she could write a half decent story did renew Kath’s confidence and faith in pursuing her passion for short stories. She has written enough stories for a collection. Now she just has to persuade a publisher ‘.

Geraldine Mills

Since 1997 when I was short-listed for the Fish Anthology ‘ Dog Days and Other Stories’, I have been swimming in a more favourable current. I am learning to avoid those monofilaments of doubt that are forever trying to ensnare me, and am getting my work to a more mainstream audience. Born in Galway , I moved to the east coast and lived there for 20 years before returning to the place where I was spawned, near the River Corrib. I now write both Poetry and short stories and have been published nationally and internationally. My poetry has been awarded such prizes as the Allingham Poetry Award, the Poem for Peace Award, the Scottish International Poetry Award. The Cork Literary Review Prize for Poetry, the Dublin Libraries Award among others. Bradshaw Books Cork has published my two collections of poetry, Unearthing your own (2001) and Toil the Dark Harvest (2004) As wells as being shortlisted for the Fish Prize, my short stories have won the Moore Medallion, The North Tipperary Award, the South Tipperary Award (three times) Aspire Prize and have been three times shortlisted for the Francis Mc. Manus Award, awarded second place in 2004. I was the Millennium winner of the Hennessy Tribune Emerging Fiction Award and overall winner of the New Irish Writer Award for the story ‘Lick of the Lizard’ which is the title of my first collection of short stories recently published by Arlen House in which my ‘Fish’ story is included. I was awarded a Tyrone Guthrie Bursary from Galway County Council in 2003 and my poetry has been part of a multi- media exhibition in collaboration with artists Joan Hogan and Denise Hogan. My novel ‘Closet full of Hats’ was short-listed for the ‘Sitric Win a Book Deal’ 2004. The rising tide brought my monologue “This is From the Woman who Does” across the Atlantic to Cape Cod where it was premiered at the Provincetown Theatre Playwrights’ Festival 2004. I am a regular contributor to RTE and Lyric FM. Still a small fish in a big pond but managing to keeping afloat.

Tom Murray

Being joint winner with  ‘Postcard from New York’ of the 2005 One Page Story competition gave me the opportunity of spending a great couple of days at the West Cork Literary Festival.  Recently  I’ve had a short play performed at the Arches Theatre in Glasgow, and have just being appointed joint writer in residence to Galashiels Academy.  I continue to co edit the Eildon Tree magazine, the literary magazine from the Scottish Borders.  My writing is divided between prose and drama, and putting together a collection of poetry hopefully to be published next year. Take a look at my website www.tommurray.org

Tom’s story can be read in our Short Stories to Read Online pages

Gina Ochsner – Winner 1999

Gina won our 1999 Short Story Prize. You could enter the 2005 – Details on ourWriting Contests page So much has happened since 1999 when I sent that story into the Fish prize contest. And so much of it has happened as a result of being published with Fish. In fact, my agent, Julie Barer of Barer Literary, found From the Bering Strait while trolling about and contacted Clem, who then put us in touch. Julie and I have been working together ever since and last May she sold the collection People I Wanted to Be to Houghton Mifflin and then again to Portobello Press in London. Right now I’m at working on a longer piece, a novel, and I am wavering between utter excitement and terror. Right now excitement is winning out, but there are days when I look in the mirror with horror and ask myself “what am I doing??” That’s when I take a coffee break and maybe tinker with a short story, and then when I’m feeling more courageous, I go back to the novel.

Gina’s winning story can be read in our Short Stories to Read Online pages

Shereen Pandit

Awards: Booktrust London (winner 2004) Commonwealth Broadcasting Association (runner up 2003) Fish Publications (runner up 1999) Wordsworth magazine (winner 1997) Young Writer magazine (2000 and 2001)

Short Stories published in magazines including: Sable, Wordsworth, The Interpreter’s House;  Young Writer; The Stinging Fly ;  Lexicon ; First Word; Exiled Writer Short Stories published in anthologies: Lines in the Sand ((Francis Lincoln Publishers), Pretext (Pen & Inc Publishers), From the Beiring Strait and Other Stories (Fish Publishing) Forthcoming in 2005: contributions to Freedom Spring and Whose Britain? Membership of Writers’ Organizations: African Writers Abroad PEN Writers in Prisons Committee Exiled Writers Ink!

Rob Pateman

Rob has recently landed a two book deal at Orion. Details here.

Rob was born and grew up in Harold Hill, near Romford in Essex in 1962 although he now lives and writes in Kennington, south London. For nearly twenty years Rob has worked as an advertising copywriter but has long harboured dreams of shedding the ‘copy’ and just being the writer. He has written umpteen stories, fairy stories and poems some of which made it out of the door and into various competitions. His joint second place in the 2005 Fish One Page Story Competition is the first time his work has got anywhere; inclusion in the 2005 Fish Anthology, The Mountains of Mars & Other Stories, is also his first time in print. This success has given him the confidence to revisit a novel he’s had stashed in a draw for the last two years and which one day, he’d like the people at Fish to give the once over. Away from the keyboard (as he often is alas) Rob is mad about tennis and dogs and revels in his quiet nights in with Boosie and Bella and all the other ghosts and shadows.

I was lucky enough to be one of the runners up in your very short story competition back in 2005, and was included in the anthology that year. I even got a name check in the Editor’s intro!

It was my first competition success, my first experience of having a story published, my first experience of reading my work publicly – and my first trip to Ireland.

My success with Fish gave me the confidence to keep writing – and to try my hand at something longer. Skip ahead a few years (and skip over a few practice novels) I finally got an agent, Oli Munson at Blake Friedmann. He has just got me a two book deal at Orion. Details here.

Deirdre Shanahan

Prior to my story “The Removal Man” being published in Dog Days [ Fish Anthology 1997] I had work in several journals including Passport and in the U.S. The Massachusetts Review, Iowa Woman, and The Southern Review and The Cimarron Review who featured several short stories as part of an international section. I had won a major Eric Gregory Award for a collection of poetry, “Legal Tender” subsequently published by Enitharmon Press. I had read at Listowel Writers’ Week and at Cuirt Festival, Galway . One of my stories won The Irish Post/B.I. Competition, judged by Shane Connaughton. I had also published a story in the anthology “Well Sorted” from Serpent’s Tail and been shortlisted for the London Short Story Competition judged by Blake Morrison and Marina Warner. A radio play, “Prussian Blue” was broadcast on RTE, directed by Aidan Mathews.

Since being published in the Fish Anthology I have gone on to have stories published in several other collections, including the Phoenix Anthology and the Kerry Anthology and to have poetry published in the Radio Waves Anthology, The White Page Anthology and “In Parallel” In 2005 I won a major award From Arts Council England and in 2006 was once again invited to teach on the Scriobh Summer School at Metropolitan University, London

Sarah Weir

Sarah has been published in literary magazines in England , New Zealand , Canada and Australia . She has been editor’s choice for the Fish competition twice and won two short story competitions in New Zealand . She has also had four stories broadcast on Radio New Zealand . Currently she is working on a novel. A brief visit to New Zealand became a twelve year stay when she was waylaid by an unexpected holiday romance. The prominence of the short story in New Zealand allowed her to develop her writing. She works as a psychotherapist and lives in a crook of the Thames with her partner and two children

Adrian Wiestrich

Since my One Page story appeared in the 2004 Fish Anthology, I’ve been very busy with the launch of Kinsale Arts Week 2005, which took place in July. We also helped launch the Kinsale Anthology, which was published in July by Anam Press. All in all, the festival was a great success and we’re just starting work on the 2006 events. Unfortunately, the creative writing group I was involved with has folded and I have certainly missed the structure of writing every week for the classes. Business at Kinsale Pottery is moving more towards weekend leisure breaks, and this means working most weekends, but as with most artistic careers, we have to take what we can get when it comes our way.

Robin’s story can be read in our Short Stories to Read Online pages

Robin Winick

Since Mrs Purvis was published by Fish in 2000, one of my stories was published on Carve’s Web site two years ago. I have not been published since -although I was for the third time a finalist in a Glimmer Train contest. Not only am I slow to send out stories but also my last four stories probably have been too political (though not didactic) for most literary magazines here. My anger at the Bush Administration (completely out of control) is permeating my life and my writing. I actually sit down at the computer to write a story, knowing, as I write, that it will not be published; yet the writing process has been cathartic and I enjoy it immensely. Fish publishes wonderful anthologies, and I shall continue to enter its contests. Robin’s story can be read in our Short Stories to Read Online pages

Jacqueline Winn

Jacqui Winn’s short story “Salt and Pepper” appears in the 2006 Fish Publishing Anthology “Grandmother, Girl, Wolf”. Since she started writing short story seven years ago, her work has been published in a number of anthologies and literary magazines in Australia . She has won over 70 awards in Australian literary competitions. In August 2006, a collection of Jacqui’s stories, entitled “Once More With Feeling” was published by Ginninderra Press. All of the stories have won national literary awards over the past few years and several have been published in other anthologies and magazines.

Jacqui has written and produced several stage plays and acted in various stage and television productions. She also writes stage and screen plays on commission. She is also in constant demand to speak and run workshops on various aspects of writing and performance.

Although Jacqui was born in Londonderry , N. Ireland , she has lived in Australia since the age of ten and currently lives on a farm on the mid-North Coast, where she and her husband Brian run a small herd of Hereford cattle.