Over a thousand people placed their nominations to determine the shortlist for this year’s Saboteur Awards. The shortlist represents the works, writers and publishers who received the most nominations in each category.

From a Pakistan-based online magazine, to a one-off performance in an eighteenth-century grotto, the works shortlisted have enormous breadth. The shortlist includes young writers at the start of their career alongside more established voices. It counts collaborations between different art forms, works that re-imagine what writing can do, events that challenge how writing can be presented.

Over the coming month, we will showcase each of these works on the website, including the comments you write when you vote for your favourites

In the meantime, you can VOTE, or book a ticket to the awards (these will definitely sell out).

Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England

Saboteur Awards 2015 Shortlist (in no particular order):

Best Collaborative Work

Amina Alyal & Oz Hardwick, Close as Second Skins (Indigo Dreams)
Guardian of the Edge – visual artists respond to Agnes Marton’s poems
Jacqueline Saphra, Benjamin Tassie & Mark Andrew Webber, If I Lay on my Back I Saw Nothing but Naked Women (Emma Press)
#losslit (curated by Kit Caless and Aki Schilz)
Melanie Rees & Sarah Miller, Selkie singing at the Passing Place (Flapjack Press)

Best Anthology

The Charnel House, ed. By Tom de Freston (Bridgedoor Press)
Double Bill, ed. Andy Jackson (Red Squirrel Press)
Furies, ed. Eve Lacey (For Books’ Sake)
Ten: The New Wave, ed. Karen McCarthy Woolf (Bloodaxe)
Unthology 6, ed. Ashley Stokes and Robin Jones (Unthank Books)

Best Novella

The Mesmerist’s Daughter, by Heidi James (Neon Magazine)
No Christmas, by Evangeline Jennings (Pankhearst)
Women, by Chloe Caldwell (SF/LD Books)
The Migrant, by u.v. ray (Murder Slim Press)
The Beauty, by Aliya Whiteley (Unsung Stories)

Best Spoken Word Show

Some People Have Too Many Legs, by Jackie Hagan
Standby for Tape Back up, by Ross Sutherland
2001: A Space Ode and Ditty, by Colin Davies
Schlock! by Hannah Silva
Can’t Care Won’t Care, by Sophia Walker

Best Short Story Collection

Don’t Try This at Home, by Angela Readman (And Other Stories)
Any Other Mouth, by Anneliese Mackintosh (Freight Books)
Tales of Modern Stupidity, by Quintin Forrest
Jebel Marra, by Michelle Green  (Comma Press)
Second-hand Rain, by Georgia Carys Williams (Parthian Books)

Most Innovative Publisher

Burning Eye Books
The Emma Press
Influx Press
Penned in the Margins
Test Centre

Best One Off Event

52 Project by Jo Bell
Words & Women (IWD)
MINE by Holly Corfield Carr
OE by Max Barton, Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston
Heart Poems for Children’s Heart Week, edited by Rebecca Goss

Best Poetry Pamphlet

MINE, by Holly Corfield Carr (Spike Island)
Kissing Angles, by Sarah Fletcher (Dead Ink Books)
White Whale, by Victoria Kennefick (Southword Editions)
Chelsea Flower Show Massacre, by Mark Fiddes (Templar Poetry)
The Devil’s Tattoo, by Brett Evans (Indigo Dreams)

Best Reviewer

Dave Coates
Joey Connolly
Eniko Jakab
Afric McGlinchey
Charles Whalley

Best Regular Spoken Word Night

Bad Language
Bang Said the Gun
Evidently
Project U
Say Owt Slam

Best Magazine

Bare Fiction
Lighthouse
Prole
Shooter Literary Magazine
The Missing Slate

Best Spoken Word Performer

Stu Freestone
Oz Hardwick
Hollie McNish
Chimene Suleyman
Sophia Walker