Basket: Thank you to everyone who entered this year’s short story competition.
All entrants should have received a confirmation of receipt of their story and entry form from Sixth Element Publishing.
What happens next?
Sixth Element Publishing will read all entries and produce a short list of thirty entries. During November our three judges will read all thirty stories and decide on their first, second and third prizes.
This year’s judges are publisher and writer Gillie Hatton, author Rebecca Philipson and former head of Hartlepool Libraries Graham Jarritt.
All shortlisted stories will appear in a published anthology and there will cash prizes for the winners:
1st prize £100, 2nd prize £75, 3rd prize £50.
The winners will be announced at an award ceremony in March 2027. All shortlisted writers will be invited to attend and will receive a free copy of the printed anthology. A copy will be posted to those writers who are unable to attend.
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The winner of the 2025 short story competition is … Julie Kirk!
We had an amazing night at Middlesbrough Central Library on 24 March celebrating the winners of the short story competition and launching our ninth anthology.
First prize goes to Julie Kirk for As The Crow Flies.
Second prize goes to Martin Feekins for The Last Fish and Chip Supper.
Third prize goes to Linny Johnstone for Occupation Hazard.
The judges also chose to highly commend Eithne Longstaff for Cast Away and Lindsey Ellwood for Child Zero.
The evening was presented by Rachel Teate from BBC Radio Tees and was a real celebration of the breadth of talented writers in our area.
The audience heard from Writer-in-Residence for 2025 Amy Lord and it was fantastic to see writers who had attended one of Amy’s workshops during 2025’s festival being shortlisted for the prize. Winner Julie Kirk actually started her winning story in one of Amy’s workshops!
The audience also heard from the three judges who had the difficult job of choosing the winners. Thank you to Judith Baker, Natalie Scott and Trevor Wood for taking on this incredibly difficult role.
All shortlisted writers were gifted a copy of the anthology and copies of the book will be available to buy from Drake the Bookshop in Stockton and Book Corner in Saltburn. They will also be available to borrow from libraries across the Tees Valley.
Huge thanks to Sixth Element Publishing for the mammoth job of shortlisting more than eighty entries and working with the writers to publish the anthology. Thanks to Scott Bonner for photographing the event and thanks to Middlesbrough Libraries for hosting the event.
