The top 20 submissions to the first Chaff Short Story Competition are being published in a book.
Run by alternative comedy magazine Chaff, the competition aimed to find funny new short stories under 1,000 words.
The organisers, Will BF and Amber Ash, explain: “Chaff is excited to announce the winners of the first Chaff Short Story Competition. The competition opened in April, and after 43 submissions, 32,825 words, and a horrifying mid-proofreading discovery of the exact specific uses of the three types of dashes… it has finally reached fruition!
“The top 20 submissions have been released as a 108 page collection of short stories – each writer was set the challenge of a 500-1000 word story on any subject, to be assessed on a criteria of originality, creativity and humour.
“The competition was judged by British Comedy Guide’s Mark Boosey, Funny Women Comedy Writing Award winner Ana Basu, BAFTA-Rocliffe New Writing Competition finalist Rhiannon Shaw, Forgotten History’s Adrian Gray, and all-time top Chaff contributor (and BBC Studios staff writer) Angela Channell.
“In a shocking three-way tie, the jointly-winning stories were Skywriter’s Block by Hughie Shepherd-Cross, Diar-ey of Gumlint the Time Eater by Eleanor Horne, and The Wife by Luke Richards. They will each receive a prize of £35 and legendary ‘kleos’.
“We’re both really proud of the collection, all the stories were so varied and funny to read. Post-Edinburgh Fringe we’ll definitely be running another competition – perhaps a ‘short-short story’ one where the word limit is 20 words – in the ‘For Sale: Baby shoes. Never worn.’ school of writing, except aiming more towards funny than harrowing.”
The other writers featured in the book are Victoria Blunt, Camilla Borges, Hector Laszlo Cosmetatos, James Coward, Charlie Dinkin, Noah Dryden, Samuel Duggan, Eliot J Fallows, Thomas Jeremiah, Lauren Johnston, Vincent Lynch, Eleanor Mason, Alexander Minto, Adam Ernest Pickard, Marina Smith, Robbie Sunderland and Leo Thomas.
The book can be bought via Etsy on the link below.
Chaff Short Story Collection 1
A curated collection of 20 funny and surreal stories across over 100 funny & real pages – these are the shortlisted (and winning!) submissions to the first Chaff Short Story Competition.
In this book you will find…
– Microplastic Tom…
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