After much consideration, and more than a little arguing (and a tiny bit of shoving), we are proud to reveal the names of the 25 stories that have made our shortlist. The whole business of judging is much harder than it first looks. Of course, there are those entries it feels quite easy to discard, but there are fewer of those than you might imagine, and the ones that have obvious problems – language issues, endings that collapse, confusing beginnings – quite often possess quite a lot of charisma, whereas other stories that are well-handled throughout and tick all the expected boxes, don’t quite add up to more than the sum of their parts.
What we would like to say is this: the standard was very high. There are 25 of this list and there could have been 50, but these were the 25 than all 3 readers agreed on. If your story isn’t there, don’t despair. Perhaps read these revision guidelines, then read it back and decide if it needs work. Then send it out again. These people keep an up-to-date list of writing competitions and offer plenty of other great resources for writers to boot. Due the volume of entries, we are unable to give individual feedback – but would like to thank each and every one of you for entering.
We’ll be announcing the winner and nine finalists in a few weeks, and then there’s that joint Reader/SAND party to celebrate it all on April 25th…
THE SHORTLIST (in alphabetical order)
#fomo by Sophie Buchel
A Monkey on a Horse by James Carson
Advice for the Orgiast by Ari Feld
One Thousand Nine Hundred and Nineteen by Julia Lackermayer
Blood Red Oxfords, Size 39 by Emily Cataneo
Counting by Laura Haugen
Eclipse by Abby Sinnott
Hausaufgaben by Phoebe Blatton
Horst-Wessel-Stadt by Will Studdert
Hunger by Jessie Keyt
In Pursuit of Invisibility by Hester Dart
Junk for Suckers by Lizzie Roberts
Looking for a Way In Joanna Greaves
Possession by Sarah Everts
Potsdamer Platz by Kenneth Corvino
Rückspiel by John Lugo-Trebble
Shattered Glass & Pale Foundation by Simon Ward
Shibboleth by Erin O’Loughlin
Soolaimon by Stacy Thomas
Take Me There by Selma Dabbagh
The Ambit by Will Bentley
The Apartment Swap by Ken Morlich
The Jars by Alice Miller
The Man Who Went East by Paul Timothy McCarthy
The Philippines Use Pesos For Currency But It Is Not The Same As The Spanish Peso by Alena Sokhan
