Crime Writers' Association/Margery Allingham Short Story 2024

It was great to attend Crimefest in Bristol in May, following my short-listing in the Margery Allingham short story competition for my story, Horses for Courses. 

Plaza Prize 2023- Hitler's Alligator

In October 2023, I was thrilled to go to the International Book Festival in Malta to receive the 2023 Plaza Prize (winner, short story category) and read from my story, Hitler's Alligator. I was also delighted to feature in the first Plaza Prizes Anthology. 

Pleased to announce that my short story Hitler’s Alligator has won the 2023 Plaza Awards: https://theplazaprizes.com/short-story-8000-max-winners-top-3/. Bring on the awards ceremony in Malta! Judge Roland Watson-Grant described it as "a sweeping, layered tale. Grounded in reality and set in one of history’s most gruesome moments, this darkly comical story offered dual perspectives of man and beast, the capturer and the captured, with such pace, it holds on and never lets go the reader right to the very end".

Winning short story published!

Thrilled that my winning entry for the Margery Allingham/Crime Writers' Association Short Story Prize is now available to read here. Enjoy! 

Crime Writers' Association - Margery Allingham Short Mystery Prize

Couldn't be happier at winning the Margery Allingham Short Mystery Prize for my story Heartbridge Homicides. Click here and here for more details. Here's how the judges described it: "A delightful, beautifully written story set in TV soapland. The breezy narration never falters as the charm of solving a crime creeps over the soap's fan. The judges felt Margery would have loved this story." It will be published on the CWA website later in the year. 

Bridport Prize shortlisting

I first heard about the Bridport Prize when I was about eleven. I remember reading about it on an outing to my local library in Leicester and thinking it would be fun to enter. Thirty plus years later, I still love a library and am delighted that my short story Hitler's Alligator has made it onto the shortlist out of nearly 5,000 entries, putting it in the top 2%. 

Fish Publishing Short Story Prize

Thrilled that my story No Alternative is a winner in the Fish Short Story Prize, and has been published in their 2019 Anthology.  No Alternative was described by judge Mia Gallagher as: "A subtle tale which appears to start simply enough, bleakness suffusing every line of its spare, unshowy prose in  the opening section. Everything seems straightforward. Okay, you'll think, I've got it, I know where this is going. But then a single line - a man's heart unpredictably skipping - snares you, and you're hooked, following the chilly, relentless inevitability of Paul's journey as he, you and the story sink deeper into a profound Mephistophelian darkness. This subject matter, if handled with less integrity, could result in something horribly schlocky. In this writer's hands it is perfect. Faust for the FundMe generation."

You can buy the anthology here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fish-Anthology-2019-Richard-Lambert/dp/0995620024