With the announcement of this year’s BSSP winner and the publication of our 13th anthology just over a week away, it is high time we introduced the 20 writers in the running for this year’s top prize. Here are ten of the writers, we’ll introduce the remaining ten tomorrow.
Arif Anwar’s debut novel, The Storm, was published internationally in 2018. His work has appeared in Vice magazine, The Daily Star Bangladesh, Dhaka Tribune, The Daily Beast, and Electric Literature, among others. He is currently hard at work on his second novel and a short story collection. He lives in Toronto, Canada.
Erika Banerji was born in Assam, India, and educated in New Delhi and London. Her short stories have been published in journals and listed for awards including the Lorian Hemingway, V. S Pritchett and London Short Story Prize. In 2019 her short story was in the top sixty entries in The BBC National Short Story Award. She is an alumni of the Faber Academy ‘Writing a Novel’ Course and the London Library Emerging Writers Program 2019-20. Erika lives in London and is currently working on a novel and a collection of stories.
Ethan Chapman’s short fiction has been published in Popshot magazine, Structo magazine, by Otherwhere Publishing, and shortlisted for the Frome Short Story Competition. His poetry has been published in Agenda and Firewords Quarterly. He is currently working on his first novel.
Chelsea Chong is based in Queensland, Australia. She spends her days frantically trying to capture the ideas floating around her mind before her one-year-old daughter insists on another reading of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Inspired by the likes of C. S. Lewis and Anis Mojgani, Chelsea writes about the individual and collective search for identity with a focus on spirituality. She works as a freelance grant writer, holds a Masters in International Development, and has previously been a community development manager and English as an Additional Language teacher.
Habiba Cooper Diallo was one of six finalists in the 2018 London Book Fair Pitch Competition. She self-published her first book, Yeshialem Learns About Fistula, and her work has been included in several anthologies. She is a women’s health advocate and is passionate about bringing an end to a maternal health condition called obstetric fistula.
Fiona Ennis holds an MA in English Literature and Publishing from National University of Ireland, Galway. She has a PhD in Philosophy from University College Cork. She lectures in Literature and Philosophy in Waterford Institute of Technology. She won the Molly Keane Creative Writing Award 2019. Her fiction has been published in Sonder and will be included in the forthcoming Leicester Writes Anthology, published by Dahlia Books. Her poetry has been published in The Honest Ulsterman.
Carol Farrelly is currently working on a short-story collection and a novel. Her stories have been widely published in journals, and broadcast on BBC Radio 4. She has been shortlisted for the Society of Authors’ ALCS Tom-Gallon Award, the Bridport Prize, Fish Prize and RA & Pin Drop Short Story Award. Creative Scotland awarded her a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship. She is also a previous Jerwood/Arvon mentee. She has a DPhil on Thomas Hardy’s fiction. She spent one dreamy year in Italy and is in love with all things Venetian.
Steven Fromm was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. He is a journalist, currently residing in New Jersey. His work has appeared in Salamander, Juxtaprose, The Ocotillo Review, The Columbia Journal and The Midwest Review. He is the 2020 winner of the Midwest Review’s Greater Midwest Fiction Contest.
Chris Gates is a Brighton-based writer, actor, director, comic and human man. He has been writing since the age of 13, with a particular focus on short stories over the past couple of years. His greatest influences are Raymond Carver, Max Beerbohm, and Stephen King. Weaver’s Trap (shortlisted for the 2020 Bristol Short Story Prize) is his first published story.
Faiza Hasan has an MSt in Creative Writing from Cambridge University, and an MA in Journalism from Stanford University, USA. She has worked as a journalist in Pakistan and the US. Her short stories have been longlisted for The Guardian BAME short story prize, Harpers Bazaar, San Miguel Writers Conference, White Review, and Glimmer Train. She has also been a general contributor at the prestigious Bread Loaf Writers Conference in the USA. She lives in Berkshire with her husband, boys, and dog, Tintin. She is currently working on her first novel.
Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology Volume 13 , featuring the 20 stories shortlisted for this year’s BSSP, is available to pre-order from our publisher, Tangent Books, here: https://www.tangentbooks.co.uk/shop/bristol-short-story-prize-volume-13