Pictured clockwise from top left: Brennig Davies, Morgan Davies, Kamand Kojouri, Dave Lewis, Kapu Lewis, Lloyd Lewis, Jo Verity, Anthony Shapland, Tanya Pengelly, Keza O’Neill, Siân Marlow, Polly Manning.
The 2024 shortlist for the prestigious Rhys Davies National Short Story Competition is announced today, Thursday 19 September.
The award recognises the very best unpublished short stories in English in any style and on any subject up to a maximum of 5,000 words by writers aged 18 or over who were born in Wales, have lived in Wales for two years or more, or are currently living in Wales.
Originally established in 1991, there have been 11 Rhys Davies Short Story Award contests to date, and in 2021 the competition was relaunched by Swansea University’s Cultural Institute on behalf of The Rhys Davies Trust and in association with Parthian Books.
The 2024 shortlist:
- The Boys on the Bridge by Brennig Davies
- Happy Mabon by Morgan Davies
- Felix by Kamand Kojouri
- Pachyderm Hiraeth by Dave Lewis
- Scapegoat by Kapu Lewis
- The Referendum by Lloyd Lewis
- Sometimes I dream about a fish by Polly Manning
- Echoes by Siân Marlow
- Sunny Side by Keza O’Neill
- A Dictionary of Light by Tanya Pengelly
- Hearsay by Anthony Shapland
- The Stopping Train by Jo Verity
The overall winner will receive £1,000 and will have their winning entry featured in The Rhys Davies Short Story Award Anthology 2024, to be published by Parthian Books in November 2024.
All 12 stories will be published in the 2024 Rhys Davies Award Anthology, published by Parthian. Edited by Dr Elaine Canning, Director of Swansea University’s Cultural Institute, the collection will also include an introduction by acclaimed fiction writer and guest judge Rebecca F. John. Each of the shortlisted writers will also receive £100.
Rebecca F. John said: “The Rhys Davies Short Story Competition never fails to attract writers of the highest quality, and this year has proven no exception. Among the stories I was honoured to select for the shortlist are tales which vary from the deeply personal to the pseudo academic, which are told from the human perspective and the elephant, and which are structured both traditionally and experimentally. What made each of these often very different stories stand out was that the themes explored, however obliquely, rang out with an honesty and humanity which is the great writer’s truest gift. I’m excited for them to find their readership. Huge congratulations are due to the writers for the dedication and bravery they have brought to their craft.”
Dr Canning, editor of the anthology, said: “The stories which feature on the 2024 Rhys Davies Competition shortlist present life in its myriad beautiful, heart wrenching, truthful forms. Here, lives are in transition – between cultures and language, past and present, dreams and reality. Characters, scarred and vulnerable, wander, and wonder. It is an honour to include the work of the twelve finalists in a special anthology dedicated to this Competition – many congratulations to them all.”
Born in Blaenclydach in the Rhondda in 1901, Rhys Davies was among the most dedicated, prolific, and accomplished of Welsh prose-writers in English. He wrote, in all, more than 100 stories, 20 novels, three novellas, two topographical books about Wales, two plays, and an autobiography.
The winner will be announced in November 2024, and the anthology will be launched on Wednesday 27 November at Waterstones Swansea, featuring the finalists and overall winner, editor Elaine Canning, guest judge Rebecca F. John, and Parthian Director, Richard Davies.
View the 2023 anthology Harvest: The Rhys Davies Short Story Award Anthology.