We are proud to nominate stories by winning and commended writers selected by our three judges, Karen Jones, Tommy Dean and Emily Devane in our Awards this year for the Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions and The Pushcart Prize literary awards. We aren’t eligble for Best Microfictions, unfortunately, because they don’t allow stories published in print anthologies. Congratulations and best wishes to all the writers whose stories are going forward in these three longstanding and prestigious awards. These stories will soon all be out in print in our end of year anthology, which also includes other brilliant stories from the short and long lists of each round of the competition.

Best of the Net
We already announced our two allowed nominations for Best of the Net before the deadline a couple of months ago, but we have added them to this post, to keep everything in the same place. We were delighted to nominate ‘A Road Map of Womanhood’ first prize winning story by Louise Mangos from the February round, judged by Karen Jones and ‘Sequelae’, first prize winner by Rachel Blake from the June round,judged by Tommy Dean.

Best Small Fictions
Our five allowed nominations for Best Small Fictions, 2023 are: ‘The Metamorphosis of Evaline Jackson’ by Kathy Hoyle, first prize in the October Award judged by Emily Devane; ‘McDonald’s’, by Sarah Freligh, second prize in the October round; ‘Between’ by Madeline Byrne, second prize in our June Award judged by Tommy Dean;‘Fourth Grade Science lesson, Chickasaw City, Alabama’, by Kathleen Latham, third prize in our October Award and ‘Grand Canyon Official Form 477D’ by Debra A Daniel, third prize in our February Award, judged by Karen Jones.

The Pushcart Prize

Our six allowed nominations for The Pushcart Prize are:

‘Edging’ by Iona Rule, second prize in our February Award;
‘Don’t mistake me for your crabapple’ by Abigail Williams, third prize in our June Award;
On Our Daughter’s Wedding Day by Sudha Balagopal, highly commended our June Award
‘The Shape of the Situation in Apartment 23C’on a Sunday in September‘ by Olwen Wilson, hightly commended in our June Award;
‘A Beachcomber’s Guide to Desert Grief’, highly commended in our October Award;
‘Riptide’ by Kathryn Aldridge Morris, highly commended in our February Award.