Top 10 Short Story (5000 words) Entries
(titles listed in no particular order)
The Letter Lady
The Horse
Hamingja
I Am a Helium Balloon
The Ballad of Rachel Bradley
Dark Birdy Eyes
One of the Roads Taken
Cedok ’87
The Jewelled Sea
Reunion
Congratulations to those who made the shortlist. The announcement of the winners will happen on the News Page next week. So, pop back to see which stories made the final cut.
Top 20 Short Story (5000 words) Entries
(titles listed in no particular order)
The Letter Lady
The Horse
Hamingja
The Tattooist Shop at 99 1/2 Portabello Road
The Arsonists
Grid Reference
The Crossing
I Am a Helium Balloon
The Ballad of Rachel Bradley
Reunion
Rosie’s Rain
We Don’t Talk About Swastikas
Cracked
Dark Birdy Eyes
One of the Roads Taken
Cedok 87
The Jeweled Sea
Everyday Magic
The Woman Who Ate Her Own Children
The Gog Magogs
Congratulations to those who made the long list. The standard of entries was high. There were 261 entries in total (including Bursary and 50% Discounted categories).
The announcement of the shortlist of 10 will happen on the News Page same time next week. So, pop back to see which stories made the cut.
Top 3 Literary: First Chapters
Congratulations to our winners. All comments below are from our judge, Simon Trewin.
“I loved judging this prize as each of the entries gave a tantalising glimpse into that new slightly out-of-focus world one encounters when beginning to read a new author and a new book. As a reader one isn’t quite sure of the rules or the literary toolkit one needs to embark on a journey into a strange and new land and this year I truly went on a series of strange and wonderful journeys – some unsettling, some heartwarming but all attention-grabbing. As an agent who reads many many words a year I long for that moment when I quickly forget I am reading a book and I just go with the prose wherever it wants to take me. Thank you to all the authors I read and I hope I get to read more of your work in the future.”
3rd Prize: Madrid Haunts by Mary Brzustowicz (USA)
“The economy of language here was especially impressive as was the author’s ability to take a simple object such as a ring and make it a three-dimensional character.”
2nd Prize: The Recipe of You by Kieran Marsh (IRE)
“I liked how the author let the layers of this story unpeel slowly and very skillfully but with an increasingly potent and poignant sense of impact.”
1st Prize: Ghost Snow & River by Shelley Trower (ENG)
“I thought GHOST SNOW AND RIVER was remarkable – a brilliant premise with a multi-layered concept that put me in mind of an early Christoper Nolan film with elements of Margaret Atwood in there to boot. Multiple personalities and deep-seated fears all grouping together to create something truly gripping. I have no idea where this novel is going to take me but I am certainly keen to find out.”
We’ll be awarding the prizes in Valletta on 18th October, 2023, as part of our collaboration with the Malta Book Festival.
Top 10 Literary: First Chapters
(titles listed in no particular order)
Madrid Haunts
The Recipe of You
Hani
The Remnants of Silence
Huberta
The Flamingo’s Last Parade
Ghost Snow & River
Antediluvian
Lime Juice Money
Bard at the Bijou
Congrats to those who made the Top 10.
We’ll announce the Top 3 Winners on the News Page soon. So, pop back to see which new novels make the final cut.
Top 3 Prose Poems
Congratulations to the winners. All comments below are from our judge, Maya C. Popa.
‘Prose poems have a way of inviting idiosyncrasy, being a hybrid form that relishes in its in-betweenness. The winning three poems all engaged with the non-human worlds in ways that challenged and surprised, feeling at once familiar (a boy and his dog) and strange (lab animals). The animals across these three prose poems serve as metaphorical vehicles towards a chief revelation–disillusioned, even suspicious of human activity. I enjoyed wrestling with their details and particular music.’
3rd place: “Have You Ever Fucked a Turtle” by David Terelinck (Australia)
‘The ending of this poem is particularly powerful and surprising. I appreciated the directness and provocative power of the language.’
2nd place: “The Laughter of Rats” by Helen Pletts (England)
‘So many of the well-chosen details here were haunting (the lit up heads like “hideous Christmas tree hats” in particular). The poem’s shape and tone were equally unsettling and strong.’
1st prize: 1st place: “The Art of Leaning” by Judith Willetts (England)
‘The poet’s quiet, unassuming weaving and paralleling of details here immediately appealed, as did the well-placed stanza/paragraph break. This was one of the most lyrical uses of the prose poem form, preserving many of the gestural qualities of poetry while borrowing the muscularity of narrative prose.’
Ever read your poems out loud? Why not enter our NEW Audio Poetry (4 mins max) judged by Anthony Joseph. Top prize: £1,000. Deadline: 30th June, 2023.
Top 20 Literary: First Chapters
(titles listed in no particular order)
Hani
Madrid Haunts
The Recipe of You
Nurture
Huberta
The Remnants of Silence
The Knowing Game
The Music of Our Lives
Dear Louis
The Flamingo’s Last Parade
Ghost Snow River
Disappearing
Antediluvian
Lime Juice Money
A Philosopher Loose in America
Bard at the Bijou
All the Thing We Cry For
The Discriminatriz
Blurred Like Ephesus
No Place I’d Rather Be
Congrats to those who made the Top 20. There were 157 entries in total (including Bursary, and 50% Discounted categories). If you didn’t get through to the final 20 this time, why not enter our NEW Science Fiction / Fantasy (5000 word max.) with literary agent, and Director of the Soho Agency, Ben Clark, as judge. Top prize: £1,000. Deadline: 30th June, 2023.
The announcement of the shortlist of 10 will happen on the News Page next week. So, pop back to see which stories make the final 10.
Top 10 Prose Poetry Entries
(titles listed in no particular order)
Drawers
Lacrimarium
5 Reasons Not to Date an Italian
Orders
Vision Sonata Without Coda
A Universe in My Hand
The Laughter of Rats
Have You Ever Fucked a Turtle
The Art of Leaning
You Wrote My Name on a Toilet Wall
Congratulations to those who made the shortlist.
The announcement of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd winners will happen on the News Page next week. So, pop back to see which prose poems made the final cut.
Top 3 Flash Fictions
Congratulations to the winners. All comments below are from our judge, Meg Pokrass.
‘It was great to see the many different interpretations of the form represented in The Plaza Prize, and exciting to be reminded that flash fiction is a form which allows us to make it our very own. Submissions were so robust and original that it was difficult to select only three. Submissions on the short list were inventive, insightful and startling, each in their own distinctive way. With a word count so small, the matter of a story itself must be proportionately larger— and with flash fiction, we like to be shown the truth, not told it.’
3rd prize: “Strangely Familiar” by Katalin Abrudan (England)
‘”Strangely Familiar” is a complex story about how early childhood wounds can mould us for life. Here, a character recognises an old injury in a familiar place—the moment in which they were forever changed. There is an unspoken sense of victory over the past in this story, and I found it to be exquisitely moving.’
2nd prize: “Ove Eriksson” by Barbara Black (CANADA)
‘”Ove Eriksson” is simply beautiful. Sentence after well constructed sentence, the glorious writing shows us a character’s emotional isolation and how in the end, how it is the invisible and unexpected that will sustain the human spirit. A story that is mysterious and deeply memorable.
1st prize: “Waterman-Men” by Azaria Brown (USA)
‘The winner, “Waterman-Men”, is a ghostly story that I couldn’t unstick from my consciousness. This story bursts with tragic urgency, with sickening stench of racism and murder hangs in the reader’s mind like smoke. The writer built this haunting story from the inside out, startling image by image, with a flawless eye toward life’s ordinary beauty.. This was a story I could not turn away from, and will follow me around for a very long time.’
Enter our NEW Poetry (40 lines max) judged by Pascale Petit. Top prize: £1,000. Deadline: 31st May, 2023.
Top 3 Microfictions
Congratulations to the winners. All comments below are from our judge, Carrie Etter.
‘What a wonderful range of stories! It was a great pleasure to read the entries and slip in and out of so many different worlds. The standard was truly impressive.’
3rd place: “Banishing Maddo” by Marie Gethins (IRELAND)
The third prize winner, ‘Banishing Maddo,’ takes a familiar subject–a child’s nighttime fear of monsters–and makes it new by deftly suggesting the wider psychological factors that draw out the child’s imaginative resilience. It’s a story that will stay with me, I’m sure.
2nd place: “A Postcard From Berlin” by Hongwei Bao (UK)
The second prize winner, “A Postcard from Berlin,” movingly conveys the struggle to articulate given the limitations of different languages and cultures, all in a single, perfect paragraph. Another writer to watch!
1st prize: “What She Heard Was Music” by Barbara Black (CANADA)
‘”What She Head Was Music” is richly evocative and compelling in its artful balance of what it gives and what it withholds, and the ending’s emotional power proves both surprising and thrilling. Once I know the story’s author, I’ll be looking to read more of their work!
Why not enter our NEW Poetry (40 lines max) judged by Pascale Petit. Top prize: £1,000. Deadline: 31st May, 2023.
Top 20 Prose Poetry Entries
(titles listed in no particular order)
The House
Something in Between
Wedding
Drawers
Bones
Lacrimarium
5 Reasons Not to Date an Italian
Orders
Vision Sonata Without Coda
A Universe in My Hand
The Shark Rockery
The Laughter of Rats
Have You Ever Fucked a Turtle
Autogenisis
The Art of Leaning
The Road to Pelathousa
Coachman’s Puzzle
I Never Heard You Yodel
Piawakawaka
You Wrote My Name on a Toilet Wall
Congratulations to those who made the long list. The standard of entries was high. There were 363 entries in total (including Bursary and 50% Discounted categories).
The announcement of the shortlist of 10 will happen on the News Page next week. So, pop back to see which stories made the cut.
