Literary Lancashire Anthology 2020

By Ellen Darbyshire, Jana Craddock, Khatijah Balu and 16 more

The Literary Lancashire Award is proud to present its 2020 anthology of shortlisted entries. Packed with magnificent and unique short fiction and poetry, this volume celebrates the work of some of the most promising young authors in the county.

Sit back and enjoy the wonderful work of Ellen Darbyshire, Nicola Hester, Jana Craddock, Daisy Brown, Khatijah Balu, Abbey Bamford and many, many more!

Contents:
Prose
‘Eggshells’ by Ellen Darbyshire
‘The Moth’ by Jana Craddock
‘The Speed of Light’ by Khatijah Balu
‘Xin’ by Alexander Hunterlarr
‘Gabriel’ by Hannah Wesson
‘There is Nothing New Under this Sun’ by Nicole Lee
‘View with Room’ by Nicola Hester
‘The Right Honourable’ by Dominic Andrew
‘The History of the Anaesthetist’ by Millie Holden
‘Absinthe Friday’ by Iestyn Jones

Poetry
‘Days Long Lost’ by Nicola Hester
‘Pooh Sticks’ by Daisy Brown
‘The Reaping’ by Abbey Bamford
‘Light Bulbs’ by Matthew Page
‘Copper Memories’ by Milly Harrison
‘Since Error’ by Martin Palmer
‘The Keeper of Time’ by Charlotte Lloyd
‘Aftermath’ by Rachana Hegde
‘Pterodactyl God’ by Sam Allport
‘Lifeboat’ by Charlotte Armitage

• Language: English
• Publisher: Beaten Track Publishing
• Release date: Aug 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781786454492

Book preview

Literary Lancashire Award Anthology 2020Literary Lancashire Award Anthology 2020Beaten Track Logo

Beaten Track

www.beatentrackpublishing.com

The Literary Lancashire Award is proud to present its 2020 anthology of shortlisted entries. Packed with magnificent and unique short fiction and poetry, this volume celebrates the work of some of the most promising young authors in the county.

Sit back and enjoy the wonderful work of Ellen Darbyshire, Nicola Hester, Jana Craddock, Daisy Brown, Khatijah Balu, Abbey Bamford and many, many more!

Literary Lancashire Award Anthology 2020

SMASHWORDS EDITION

First published 2020 by Beaten Track Publishing

Copyright © 2020 Literary Lancashire Award

Edited by Lily Norman

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/lilynorman

Copyright of individual works is maintained by the respective authors:

Ellen Darbyshire, Jana Craddock, Khatijah Balu, Alexander Hunterlarr, Hannah Wesson, Nicole Lee, Nicola Hester, Dominic Andrew, Millie Holden, Iestyn Jones, Daisy Brown, Abbey Bamford, Matthew Page, Milly Harrison, Martin Palmer, Charlotte Lloyd, Rachana Hegde, Sam Allport, Charlotte Armitage

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher.

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Paperback: 978 1 78645 448 5

Hardcover: 978 1 78645 458 4

eBook: 978 1 78645 449 2

Cover Design: Alix Leonard

Beaten Track Publishing,

Burscough, Lancashire.

www.beatentrackpublishing.com

Thanks to the English Literature and Creative Writing Department at Lancaster University, whose ongoing support throughout our project has provided us with much guidance, and whose financial donation has enabled this project to truly accomplish its goals.

Thanks to our Poetry and Prose Judges, who volunteered their time to the difficult task of shortlisting our many excellent entries and provided us with wonderful feedback.

Thanks to Professors Graham Mort and Saleel Nurbhai for donating their expertise in creative writing to select this year’s winners and runners-up.

A big thank-you to all of the entrants who submitted this year—we had tons of fantastic submissions, which our judges and team thoroughly enjoyed reading.

And thanks to our very generous supporters on our GoFundMe page—this wouldn’t be possible without you.

Contents

Foreword

Our Themes

Prose

Eggshells by Ellen Darbyshire

The Moth by Jana Craddock

The Speed of Light by Khatijah Balu

Xin by Alexander Hunterlarr

Gabriel by Hannah Wesson

There is Nothing New Under this Sun by Nicole Lee

View with Room by Nicola Hester

The Right Honourable by Dominic Andrew

The History of the Anaesthetist by Millie Holden

Absinthe Friday by Iestyn Jones

Poetry

Days Long Lost by Nicola Hester

Pooh Sticks by Daisy Brown

The Reaping by Abbey Bamford

Light Bulbs by Matthew Page

Copper Memories by Milly Harrison

Since Error by Martin Palmer

The Keeper of Time by Charlotte Lloyd

Aftermath by Rachana Hegde

Pterodactyl God by Sam Allport

Lifeboat by Charlotte Armitage

Acknowledgements

Beaten Track Publishing

Foreword

The Literary Lancashire Award was founded in 2019 by Ruth Walbank and Lara Oriss and is now in its second year of running. The award is designed to be an opportunity for young writers in Lancashire to experiment and be creative with writing whilst simultaneously allowing ambitious writers to take that first step into building an impressive writing portfolio.

This year’s entries were fabulously fun to read, and our team has been eagerly anticipating the publication of The Literary Lancashire Award Anthology 2020.

Our team has worked incredibly hard since October 2019, so a big thank-you to our wonderful team members:

Megan Hawkswell, Secretary and Treasurer

Olivia Middleton, Online Content Officer

Alix Leonard, Online Content Officer

Daniel Findell, Co-Head Organiser and Head of Judging

Lily Norman, Co-Head Organiser and Head of Marketing

We hope you have as much fun exploring the creativity of Lancashire’s writers as we did.

Our Themes

Each year, we set several themes for entries to be submitted under. We find these themes can be a useful way to get ideas flowing, as we keep them open and broad in their interpretation. This year’s themes are:

Lost and Found

Mysterious Stranger

Under the Influence

The Machine

Witch Hunt

‘What comes from the heart, goes to the heart’

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge

‘But the future must be met, however stern and iron it be’

—Elizabeth Gaskell

Prose

Winner

Eggshells

By Ellen Darbyshire

‘The stories were of a very high quality, with a number of distinct and engaging voices. These were all a great pleasure to read, and it was a challenge to decide the best of them. The eventual winner was Eggshells, a compact piece of flash fiction packed with description and emotion; the characters were nicely rounded, and there was a sweet and believable interaction between them.’

Saleel Nurbhai

Head Judge of Prose

Eggshells

by Ellen Darbyshire

Lost and Found

The eggs have broken.

In front of me is translucent albumen, drip

drip

dripping

down the shelves, past the organic boxes at the top—Fresh, Healthy, Happy—all the way down to the battery boxes at the bottom—Saver, Budget, Value. Every time a string of the stuff snaps, I hear it splash at my feet. I know that if I look down, I will see the egg whites there, and the yolks, and the shells. I also know that if I do not look down then there might be nothing there at