This year our judging panel, Bob Johnston of the Gutter Bookshop and literary agent Simon Trewin, is joined by Rachel Donohue whose short stories were shortlisted for the Hennessy New Irish Writing Award in 2013 and 2014 and who won New Irish Writer of the Year in 2017. Her critically acclaimed novels, The Temple House Vanishing and The Beauty of Impossible Things are published by Corvus. And The Temple House Vanishing was listed as one of the New York Times top books of 2021!
Our judges have the unenviable task of choosing a shortlist from the longlisted authors listed below. The shortlisted stories will then be published here at Writing.ie later in October so that you, the readers, can decide on the winner of the Writing.ie Short Story of the Year 2023.
The timeline on our element of the Irish Book Awards is entirely separate to the main awards as Short Story Awards have a different structure and we publish a longlist – the shortlists for all categories will be announced in October.
Huge congratulations to the following authors, listed in no particular order:
Roisín O’Donnell
Eamon McGuinness
Wendy Erskine
Nuala O’Connor
Tim MacGabhann
Sheila Armstrong
Danielle McLaughlin
David Butler
Neil Tully
Colin Barrett
Twist Phelan
Rebecca Miller
This year was an incredible year for the short story and we were delighted to get submissions from many of the online literary magazines that give voice to new talent, as well as Irish and international publishing houses. We cannot wait to see who our judges select for the shortlist!