Saboteur Awards 2019 Category Spotlight: Best Short Story Collection

There have been some brilliant short story collections published in the last twelve months. The first round of Saboteur voting saw the best of these short story releases narrowed down to a final four, and you can choose your favourite from them by heading over to the voting form here.

Table Manners: And Other Stories by Susmita Bhattacharya

Susmita Bhattacharya is an Indian-born British writer. Her novel, The Normal State of Mind, was published in 2015 by Parthian (UK) and Bee Books (India) in 2016 and was long listed for the Words to Screen Prize, Mumbai Association of Moving Images (MAMI) Film Festival in 2018. Her short stories have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and won writing competitions. These stories appear in her first collection, Table Manners, published by Dahlia Publishing in 2018. She teaches contemporary fiction at Winchester University and also leads the Mayflower Young Writers, a SO:Write project based in Southampton. She recently won an ACE grant along with Nazneen Ahmed to do a creative art and writing project linked with the Mayflower400 commemorations. She sailed around the world in oil tankers for many years and now lives in Winchester.

You can find out more information about Susmita’s projects by visiting her website, or by following her on Twitter.

The Wooden Hill by Jamie Guiney

Jamie Guiney is a literary fiction writer from County Armagh, Northern Ireland. His debut short story collection, The Wooden Hill, (published by Epoque Press) is shortlisted under Best Short Story Collection, in the 2019 Saboteur Awards. Jamie’s short stories have been published internationally and he has been nominated twice for the The Pushcart Prize.

Jamie is a graduate of the Faber & Faber Writing Academy and has twice been a judge for short story competition The New Rose Prize. His work has been backed by the Northern Ireland Arts Council through several Individual Artist Awards and he has also been chosen by Lagan Online as one of their New Original Writers.

Jamie favours the short story genre, believing it to be the closest written prose to the traditional art of storytelling.

Jamie’s website, which details his present publications and plans for future projects, can be seen by clicking here.

HWFG by Chris McQueer

Chris McQueer is a 27 year old writer from Glasgow. He has written two collections of short stories, Hings and HWFG, both published by award winning indie publishing house, 404 Ink. His first book, Hings, has been adapted into a series of short films for BBC Scotland. He is currently working on his first novel.
Both his short story collections are available here.

Finding a Way by Diane Simmons

Diane Simmons is a co-director of National Flash Fiction Day and part of the organising team for the Flash Fiction Festival in the UK. She has been a reader for the international Bath Short Story Award, an editor for FlashFlood and has judged several flash competitions. Her fiction has featured in publications such as Mslexia; New Flash Fiction Review; To Carry Her Home, BFFA Vol One; The Lobsters Run Free, BFFA Vol 2; Things Left and Found by the Side of the Road, BFFA Vol. 3; Flash I Love You (Paper Swans); FlashBack Fiction; Micro Madness; Flash Fiction Festival, Vols One and Two and six NFFD anthologies. She has also been placed or shortlisted in many flash and short story contests. Her novella-in-flash was shortlisted for publication by V Press in 2018. Finding a Way, her collection on the theme of grief, was published by Ad Hoc Fiction in February 2019.

You can find out more information about Diane and her writing work by visiting her website, which is available here.