“Jacking Sea Fruits in the Dark’ is a marvellous study of voice, imagery, and the ways in which ambiguity can be used to create narrative momentum. It’s all here: a clear sense of place and an evocation of the tangled and inscrutable nature of a person’s relationship to their surroundings and even their own actions.”

“Two things particularly stood out as we discussed this story. First, the narration. It’s a lilting, turning voice, one that is both charming and slightly off-kilter. The voice summons up our protagonist so perfectly via word choice and sentence length. Second, the twist ending. They’re hard to pull off. Done wrong and they can make a reader feel toyed with. But done well and the reader’s eyes dart up the page to reread and re-understand. It seemed that was what we had each done.”

“This was an unsettling and darkly funny story, carried above all by the voice of its narrator – loner, voyeur, magpie-like collector, trickster, and what else, we’re never quite sure …”

“Skilfully moving between one generational point of view to another ‘Hot Butter on Repeat’ vibrates with life, violence, the bonds of family and legacies of conflict and marginalisation from which the story urges us not to look away”

“Explores a part of UK political history that is often overlooked with action, great dialogue and intent”

“Heartbreaking, shocking, and full of energy, I was swept along with characters that mattered to me”

“‘Like a Blooming Discotheque’ is completely bewitching, a story told in a structure that felt fittingly strange.”

“One of the most distinctive settings for a short story I have ever come across, ‘Like a Blooming Discotheque’ managed to cover an extraordinary range in very little time.”

“’Like a Blooming Discotheque’ is a strinkingly ambitious and imaginative story centred around family breakdown at Forton Services on the M6 Northbound, with two narrators. Intricate and interesting.”

“We were very impressed with ‘Camellia Girl’.  It’s a wonderful story, beautifully written, we particularly liked the deft handling of both characters and the sense that things can change for the better.”

“I’m delighted to let you know that you’ve taken first-place in our 2017 competition.  I absolutely loved ‘Welcome to Legoland’.  Your story hit me in that spot in my chest that aches when a story evokes emotion so authentically.  For the 37 years of this competition I have trusted that instinct and it has yet to let me down.  Such a beautifully rendered work.”

“Box 821 succeeds as an enchanting tale for it is beautifully realised, utterly compelling with a distinctive, and very accomplished, style and voice.”

“I’d like to award First Prize to the haunting story ‘On Crosby Beach’. I found myself coming back to this atmospheric piece time and time again, seeing something different in it each time I re-read. It is a story about loss on several levels, about loss of innocence, about living with guilt which will not leave, and about an attempt at resolution and atonement. Here, a woman has been haunted all her life by a death that happened on her watch when she was only a child herself. I enjoyed the voice, the wonderfully and chillingly evoked Crosby Beach, now the setting for an Anthony Gormley installation. I found a real poignancy in the actions of the main character as she quietly and without fuss returns a lost boy to the place where he died all those years ago, where he will no longer be alone thanks to the myriad Gormley statues. The story ends well, I think – it does not tie up all the ends – we are left not knowing if her attempt to find peace for herself, and for the lost child will succeed. The power is all in the attempt.”