LONDON, UK – Costa Coffee has revealed the names of the three writers shortlisted for the 2019 Costa Short Story Award. Established in 2012, the Award – run in association with the Costa Book Awards but judged independently of the main five-category system – is judged anonymously ie without the name of the author being known throughout the process.
It is open to both published and unpublished writers for a single, previously unpublished short story of up to 4,000 words by an author aged 18 years or over and written in English.
This year’s shortlisted writers are:
Anna Dempsey for The Dedicated Dancers of The Greater Oaks Retirement Community: Anna Dempsey is an American-born writer and teacher based in south-east London. She received an MA in Children’s Literature and Creative Writing from Goldsmiths College and an MA in Education from Touro College in NYC. She moved to London after several years of teaching in Brooklyn and she’s currently completing her debut YA novel, set in Florida (expect alligators). When she’s not writing she can be found tossing a frisbee in the park or teaching creative writing to children throughout the city. This is Anna’s first piece of short fiction.
Kerry Hood for The Dog Friend of Dastardly: Kerry Hood has won/been shortlisted for several short story awards and was highly commended for the 2017 Costa Short Story Award. She writes about isolation and loneliness (with jokes) and is starting a bleakly funny collection exploring language and form. Her work has appeared in several publications, and two of her stories have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Kerry has also written ten plays and had residencies at the National Theatre, Traverse Theatre and RADA. She has a first-class degree in English Literature and writes full-time in Devon.
Iain Rowan for Birds of the Mountain: Iain Rowan lives in Sunderland and is an Academic Registrar at the university there. He’s the author of the crime novel One of Us (2012), has been shortlisted for both the Crime Writers’ Association Debut Dagger and for the 2017 Bath Novel Award. In 2018 he won a Northern Writers’ Award for his (then) novel-in-progress, Going Under, now out on submission. Iain is Founder and Director of the Sunderland Festival of Creative Writing, and both founded and runs the Sunderland writers’ group, Holmeside Writers.
The author of the story that received the most public votes will be announced as winner and receive £3,500 at the Costa Book Awards ceremony which takes place on Tuesday 28th January, with second place receiving £1,000 and third place £500.
The shortlist of three stories was selected by a panel of judges comprising Sarah Franklin, founder of Short Stories Aloud and Senior Lecturer in Publishing at Oxford Brookes University; Radio 2 Book Club producer Joe Haddow; literary agent Simon Trewin; and authors Adele Parks and Kit de Waal, herself a finalist for the Costa Short Story Award in 2013.
The judges also had the option to highly commend up to six additional entries
This year, the judges chose the following three stories for commendation:
- Not Contagious by Haleh Agar
- A Guide to Household Infestations by Edward Hogan
- Inside the Box by Lydia Vincent
Previous winners include Caroline Ward Vine (2018), a former magazine publisher from Kent, Newham-based primary school teacher Luan Goldie (2017), whose debut novel Nightingale Point was published by HarperCollins last year; Jess Kidd (2016) from Richmond in Surrey, the author of three novels, most recently Things in Jars published in April 2019; former headteacher Daniel Murphy from Stirling in Scotland (2015); and writer and PhD student Zoe Gilbert (2014) from Sydenham Hill, South East London.
The 2013 winner, Newcastle-based writer and poet Angela Readman, published her debut short story collection, Don’t Try This At Home, in 2015 by & Other Stories. Her latest collection of poems, The Book of Tides, was published by Nine Arches Press at the end of 2016. Former prison manager and now full-time writer, Avril Joy, from Witton-le-Wear in Bishop Auckland took the inaugural Award in 2012 and has since published an e-book, From Writing with Love.
Previous shortlistees include: Kit de Waal, a finalist in 2013 whose bestselling debut novel My Name is Leon was shortlisted for the 2016 Costa First Novel Award; Irish writer Billy O’Callaghan, runner-up in 2016, whose second novel My Coney Island Baby was published by Jonathan Cape in 2019; and Sheila Llewellyn, shortlisted for the Award in its inaugural year (2012) and then again in 2013, whose debut novel Walking Wounded was published by Sceptre in 2018.
The Costa Book Awards recognise the most enjoyable books of the last year by writers based in the UK and Ireland. Formerly known as the Whitbread Book Awards, Costa Coffee announced its takeover of the sponsorship of the UK’s prestigious and popular book prize in 2006.
