A couple of recent successes:

In December 2023 We Are Birds That Fly places third in the Writing Magazine Grand Prize. I was going to post that here but they were to do a publicity post and that never seemed to happen.

Also, my flash fiction ‘The Drop’ was a finalist in the Wild Atlantic Writing Awards flash fiction. Again they were supposed to publish news and a bio but I’ve seen nothing, so probably no harm dropping my story here:

There was a weird yoke in the car park. Some kinda rusted metal pole, bent in the middle, a zig-zag on the end, the letters of “Killala Quay” stood out. 

– Poxy art shite, he said to nobody, and spat at the pole.

A car pulled in behind him, scattering gravel. Black Audi Q5 Sportback. He took a last drag and flicked his butt out into the water. 

– How’r’yeh, he said as he pulled himself into the passenger seat.

– Respect, Eamo.

– Respect, Pluto.

Peter “Pluto” Shortall kept himself well. Head and face close shaved, clean white teeshirt stretched over formidable muscles. He was short, but there weren’t many could stand up to him in a straight fight, and he never fought straight. He could have been any age between twenty and sixty. He might be immortal.

– Yeh keeping the head low?

– Yeah. Bleeding bored off me tits and all. 

– Better bored than dead.

– Pigs still looking for me?

– Wouldn’t be worrying about them pigs, they couldn’t catch the clap from a hooer’s fanny. Them Salley Hedges boys are out for yeh, but. 

– Yeah.

He watched a bunch of ducks landing on the water just out from the quay. His girlfriend Annie would love it here, she was into all this nature shite. All he could see, though, was poxy water and poxy dunes and poxy boats.

– Way I’m seeing it, Eamo, it’s that wan Maggie yeh have to worry about. She’s the one won’t let the Salley Hedges boys leave off, like. 

– The fucking ould dragon.

-Yeh know what they say about dragons, though. Yeh cut the head off.

– Is that what they say?

– Bleeding is.

There was a poke on his leg. He looked down. Pluto had pulled something wrapped in a plastic bag from under the seat. He was pushing it on Eamo.

– Ah, Jaysus, no, Pluto, no.

– Yeh’re not gonna be able to hide out here forever.

– I can’t do that, Pluto. It’s not me, like, yeh know. And a woman, and all. I couldn’t bleeding do it.

– Yeh’re a Shortall, Eamo. Yeh’ll bleeding do what yeh have to.

There was a moment, an eternal moment. It could have gone either way. He saw the rage in Pluto’s black eyes. He saw the fury in the taut muscles of his arm. The message was clear. You’ll take the gun, one way or the other. You’ll get one end, or the other. 

He grabbed it, shoved it up his jumper.

– Good man, I’ll send Billyer for yeh when we’re ready. Keep yer burner phone charged, but. 

Pluto reached over, pulled him awkwardly into a manly hug.

– Respect, Eamo.

– Respect, Pluto. 

Eamo got out. Pluto drove off, tyres screaming around the corner. Eamo was mad for some curry chips and a pint, but he’d have to drop the piece home to his airbnb. 

– Poxy art shite, he said again, spitting.

My story, Blessed is the fruit of your womb, has been long listed for the Fish Publishing prize. Waiting to see further results 🙂

I was recently fortunate to travel to Malta to the first Plaza prizes ceremony. I met many wonderful writers, received my second place prize for my novel, The Recipe Of You, and also had the privilege to read out the opening chapter. Wonderful celebration of everything that my writing is about. I will definitely be throwing work into these competitions from now on.

https://theplazaprizes.com

Many thanks to the judges for this honour, and congratulations Nikki Copleston on the win. Very sad that I didn’t manage to get to the prize giving in the end, I’ll try to get there next year as the festival looks marvellous. Details here.

Update: the story is now online here.

My story Moonblind made the shortlist for the 2022 Writers&Artists short story competition.

https://www.writersandartists.co.uk/advice/wa-short-story-competition-2022-shortlist-announced

Delighted to find my new short story Parting Glass on the short list for this month’s Writers’ Forum magazine competition.

The apartment she had rented was in an old coast guard station, a long stone building with a square lookout tower at one end. It was damp, and she couldn’t get any of her clothes properly dry after her long sea walks. A fug of cold followed her everywhere. The photography was frustrating; creativity eluded her. 

She had fought for this opportunity, that was the thing. ‘You have such a great eye for faces,’ her mother had said. She meant well, the poor woman, could not grasp why somebody would want to take a picture of a stone or an upturned boat when a lucrative career taking tedious family snapshots in a Clontarf studio awaited her. All she had to do was admit her failure. 

She walked down the steps to the rocky beach and started yet again along the foreshore.

‘I’m going home today.’

‘You’re so close, Jenna, you need to stay.’ This was Oliver, or rather his voice. Oliver had been a brilliant photography lecturer, an enthusiastic lover and, as it turned out, a lousy motorcyclist. 

‘Its no good, Ols. I’ve tried. I’ve given it everything.’

‘That’s just it. You’ve been trying too hard. You need to simply let go and it will happen.’

‘That’s bollox. Just because you’re dead doesn’t make you wise.’

‘Just because I’m a made up voice in your head doesn’t make me wrong.’

There was a sandy beach along the walk with a top beach of pebbles. Each day, as she had passed, sometimes several times a day, she had stopped to pick up stones of varying sizes. Today, she took a tiny pebble. It was sea-stone smooth, worn down by generations of waves. She put it in her pocket. 

Her camera stayed in the bag. She had snapped every inch of the beaches, the rocks, the fields, the craggy islands, the distant hills with their foggy cloud tops. She was after that essential moment that transformed everything, that point at which the wrist became the hand, the neck became the head. All she had to show for it was a computer disk full of tedious landscapes and close-ups of seaweed. 

She came to the ruin of the boat house, a concrete structure faced with stone, a concrete slip rolling down from it but making it nowhere near the sea before it decayed into nothingness. Here she had been building her pile, stone on stone on stone. It seemed almost done. She pulled out the pebble and balanced it on top. It was perfect, as if all of creation had been there purely for this moment, for this topping out. 

She took out her camera to capture the pile, the boat house and those elements of her life that she was letting go.

‘I love you, Ols, but I need to leave you here.’

‘You don’t, Jenna. I know I’m dead, but you’ll always regret shutting me out, letting go of your art. You are beautiful, you need to express that.’

‘I can’t do it, it’s too hard.’

’Take the pebble, Jenna. Take the pebble from the top and take me with you.’

She reached out, her hand shivering. 

Overhead, a gull circled slowly. In the field, cattle grazed. Crabs scuttled under the rocks. Fish swam. Jenna’s hand hovered…