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Many thanks to everyone who submitted a flash story for the 2026 WestWord Prize. We’ve enjoyed reading them all and are delighted to announce the longlist of 13 stories that have gone through to the next round. Huge congratulations if your story appears here - no telling which is yours though as we are reading anonymously!
We’ll be announcing the shortlist as soon as we can. Good luck for the next round!
Longlisted Stories
All the best, Father Christmas
Appeal
Bamboo
Fate of a Rocking Chair
Forelsket
Let’s Just Say it Never Happened
Love is a Burning Thing
The Fittest
The Immortality Paradox
The Shape of Something Missing
The Slaking of Sorrow
The Last Screening
The Youngening Machine
Workshop this weekend
Are you working on a novel? Then join Amanda tomorrow for Novel Building Blocks 5: Revision Strategies for Novel-Length Work. Approach revision as a novelist with strategies designed for longer work. Learn systematic methods to tackle structural issues, character arcs, and pacing problems without drowning in the enormity of the task. Leave with a practical roadmap for transforming your draft into a polished manuscript.
Sunday 3rd May
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
£20
This workshop is included with WestWord memberships. Join here or just book separately and come along.
Ready to transform your writing journey?
WestWord isn't just another literary journal. It's a movement toward more mindful, meaningful storytelling that brings healing, peace, and unity to our divided world.
Join our writing community for just £14/month and unlock:
✨ Weekly 1-hour flash fiction writing Zoom sessions
✨ Monthly 1-2 hour craft workshops with replays
✨ Exclusive in-depth craft posts with deep insight and unique writing prompts
✨ Submissions to ALL themed editions and the annual WestWord Prize
From craft development to publication opportunities, membership gives you everything you need to grow as a writer.
Save £28 with annual membership — that's two months free — and makes each workshop, craft post, writing session and submission just £1.73 each!
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News, opportunities and moreYour monthly WestWord round up
Hello everyone, This past month has seen new publications, shortlist announcements and cover reveals… and that’s just scratching the surface! Firstly, a huge congratulations to those writers who have made it onto the 2026 First Chapter Comp Shortlist, fingers crossed for the next stage of the competition! And that isn’t the only thing we have to celebrate - our charity anthology, Dislocation, is nearly ready. We can’t wait to share these fantastic flashes all tackling the theme of HOME. If you want to come and celebrate the launch of the book and hear some of those included stories read by the authors grab your ticket fast, it’s completely free and we’d love to see you there. And if all that wasn’t enough, Edition 12 of WestWord has just been published. Six brand new stories on the theme of BLOOM. A must read! And finally, we also shared a new hermit fiction - A Recipe for a Breathless First Date by Taria Karillion. I love how the opening list sets everything up perfectly and the touches of humour work so well. If you’ve never submitted to WestWord before (details on how to do so can all be found below), but aren’t sure where to start we have a raft of insightful and inspirational craft posts on the website. Amanda’s newest post is a fascinating exploration of connectivity and how linking story elements makes for a richer reading experience. As always, happy writing! DeadlinesWe want your submissions for the next edition of WestWord. You have until 31st May to perfect your stories on the theme of COMPASS. Pirate coves, vintage maps, an intense argument to the soundtrack of a SatNav… Direct your readers in any way you wish, navigate the murky waters of what it is to be human! Accepting short stories up to 3,000 words, flash fictions up to 1,000 words, and micro fictions up to 350 words. Submission fee: £5. Submit here. Always openHermit Haven Folktale Flash Flash Focus Monthly Micro Short Story Spotlight If you’re a member of the WestWord Community you now get one free submission a year included with your membership. WorkshopsNovel Building Blocks 5: Revision Strategies for Novel-Length WorkSunday 3rd May 2026 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM BST Learn vital methods to tackle the structural issues, character arcs, and pacing problems that come with working on a longer piece of prose. Developed to give writers a practical roadmap for transforming their draft into a polished manuscript. This workshop is included with a WestWord membership or you can pay as you go. The Space Between Words — Writing Silence and StillnessSunday 17th May 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM BST Some of the most powerful writing lives not in what is said but in what is withheld. The pause before a difficult truth is spoken. The thing left out of a memory. The sentence that ends before it reaches its conclusion. In the Tao Te Ching, the empty space inside a vessel is what makes it useful — and the same is true on the page. Through examples drawn from memoir, personal essay, and prose poetry, you’ll discover how what you choose not to say can carry as much weight as what you do. When All Times Happen at Once: Playing with Eternalism in FictionSunday 7th June 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM BST Escape the tyranny of linear time in this new workshop and explore how alternative concepts of time can transform your fiction. Drawing on archaeological mysteries, Eastern philosophy, and the idea that “all times are equally real,” prepare to examine circular structures, time slips, cross-temporal communication, and narratives where past and future bleed into the present. Surrealism and Breaking the RulesTuesday 9th June 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM BST Surrealism doesn’t just bend reality it abandons logic entirely and it has long been used as a literary technique to explore the human psyche. Without the constraints of time, logic and reason, writers have more freedom to experiment and really consider the complexities of human existence. Join us for practical tips on how to use surrealism in your writing. WestWord members can attend this workshop at a discounted rate. Friday FlashingEvery Friday 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM GMT Join Debbi Voisey for focused flash fiction development that will sharpen every aspect of your writing. Each session features a reading, associated writing prompts and a chance to take your flash writing to the next level. These sessions are included in a WestWord membership or you can pay as you go. If you have your own idea for a workshop, get in touch. CoursesWriting the BardoWriting the Bardo is a 6-month programme combining writing, mindfulness and Yoga Nidra meditation to help you move through life’s transitions with an open and courageous heart. And to do none of it alone — because this is also a community where we hold each other through the crossing. Applications close 8th June. Other OpportunitiesIf you like a high octane writing competition then maybe The Booby Prize is the one for you. Opening on 1st May, entrants have just two days to respond to the prompt and try to win the top prize of £500. Entry fee: £10. The Oxford Poetry Prize also opens for submissions on 1st May. This year’s judge, Rowan Ricardo Phillips will choose the best poem of up to 60 lines for a chance to win the top prize of £2,000. Deadline: 31st August. Irish magazine, Stinging Fly is open for submissions of fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction between 6-20th May. Clear guidelines can be found on their website. PromptGive your protagonist their perfect day. Write using the senses, what they eat, the smells and textures they experience. The emotions they feel. Are there people with them? Is it action-packed or relaxed? Once you have given them the nicest time possible, rewrite the piece with one of the following to add tension and conflict.
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Hi Story Lovers,
A lot of creative writing workshops focus on individual story elements as if they’re separate things. Character development. Setting. Voice. Plot. Structure. Theme. We talk about them as distinct components, as if you could work on each one independently and then assemble them like IKEA furniture. I have done this myself teaching workshops specifically about one element and it can be helpful to focus in on one part.
But that’s not how stories actually work.
Stories are ecosystems. Everything exists in relationship. Change one element and everything else shifts. Remove something and the whole system collapses. Add something new and it ripples through every other part.
Story Ecology
Think about a forest. You can't just look at the trees. The trees need healthy soil. The soil needs fungi to break down nutrients. The fungi need decomposing matter. The decomposing matter needs insects to process it. The insects need to be kept in balance by birds. Remove the birds and the insect population explodes, overwhelming the system. Everything affects everything else.
Your story works the same way. The voice shapes what details the narrator notices and what they say. The setting influences the character’s emotional state. The theme impacts the setting. The relationships between the character influences their interactions. Nothing exists in isolation.
Look at Ian O’Brien’s “Figurines” — a story about teenage cruelty, class divide, and the moment someone finds the courage to step out of the pack. But you can’t separate any element from the others:
The setting isn’t just backdrop — it’s integral to the entire conflict. Sylvia lives in “the last of the old red houses, built just after the war when the council planned with sunlight and space in mind.” The narrator and his friends live in the “brownbrick houses” that “were added on, rows spreading like knotweed across the fields.” That physical divide between old and new, between planned-with-care and mass-produced, between ornate street signs and “thin tin that you could bend at the edges if you kicked hard enough” is more than setting description. It’s the source of the cruelty. Change the setting and you change the entire story.
The character of the narrator is revealed through what he notices — the street signs, the figurines, the way Sylvia walks “like a woman in a Hitchcock film.” His eye for detail, his awareness of what’s happening even as he participates, his shame — it’s all there in what he sees and how he describes it.
The structure mirrors the moral descent — three sections, each one taking us deeper into the house, deeper into violation, until the violence of the bedroom scene.
The voice is reflective, guilty, and precise voice and is inseparable from the theme. This is someone looking back, understanding what he couldn’t or wouldn’t understand then.
You couldn’t change the setting without changing the character. You couldn’t change the voice without changing the theme. You couldn’t restructure it without losing the moral architecture. It’s all connected.
Form as Ecosystem
Sometimes the form itself is part of the ecology. Look at Jon Hunter’s “Mr Jenkins, Period 3, History” — a single unpunctuated sentence that mirrors a man falling down stairs, falling through time, falling apart.
The lack of punctuation isn’t a gimmick. It’s the story. The breathless rush is Mr. Jenkins’s mind spiraling, his present catastrophe triggering past failures — ”nana’s bone-china tea service” and “the tray of drinks I fumble-carry across a bar” and his father saying he’s “falling short of being a man.”
The form creates the pace (we can’t slow down, can’t catch our breath, just like him). The form reveals character (his panicked, associative thoughts). The form embodies the theme (a life of accumulated failures culminating in this single, public humiliation).
Voice as the Keystone Species
In ecology, a keystone species is one that holds the whole system together. Remove it and everything collapses. In many stories, voice is that species.
Mikki Aronoff’s “After the Ball” retells Cinderella from the ugly stepsisters’ perspective. The entire story depends on voice — that darkly comic, grotesque, unapologetically bitter tone:
“I cut off my toe for that schmuck.” Griselda lifts the hairdryer hood from her head, rolls a three-year-old copy of People Magazine into a truncheon. “I bled for him!”
The voice does everything. It establishes character (Griselda’s fury, Grinzella’s people-pleasing, Grunhilda’s retribution). It creates tone (dark humour verging on horror). It carries theme (women’s rage at being rejected, the violence they’ve internalised and inflicted on themselves). It shapes the structure (the salon scene followed by what each sister will do that night).
The Ripple Effect
In an ecosystem, changing one element creates ripples. The same is true in stories.
Go back to “Figurines.” Imagine if the narrator had been one of the girls instead of a boy. Everything changes. The dynamic with Max shifts. The sexual threat in the bedroom scene transforms. The final moment with Sylvia dabbing his bloody eye takes on different weight. The whole ecology shifts.
Or imagine if “Mr Jenkins” were told in past tense with normal punctuation: “I took one last swig to buff the jagged edges of a tattered week. Then I had five minutes to reach room twenty-six, just two flights down...” It becomes a different story. Calmer. More distanced. Less visceral. The urgency drains away. The form was holding the panic in place.
Or if “After the Ball” were told in their mother’s voice, or Cinderella’s, or the prince’s. Each perspective shift would transform not just the narrator but the entire ecosystem — what we notice, what matters, what the story means.
Finding Your Story’s Ecosystem
When you’re writing, you’re not just working on character or plot or setting. You’re building an ecosystem. Here’s how to think ecologically about your work:
Start with what feeds what. How does your setting shape your character’s worldview? How does your character’s voice determine what details you include? How does your structure mirror your theme?
Look for the keystone species. What’s the one element that, if removed, would cause everything else to collapse? Is it voice? Structure? A particular image or motif? That’s your keystone—protect it, strengthen it, let it shape everything else.
Test the ripples. Change something deliberately and track what else has to shift. Change the narrator from first person to third. Change the setting from summer to winter. Change the ending. What ripples through the rest of the story?
Notice what resists change. If you try to change something and it feels wrong, pay attention. That resistance tells you something is structurally necessary, ecologically essential.
Look for false separations. Are you treating an element as if it’s separate when it’s actually interconnected? For instance, thinking “I need to work on my dialogue” when actually the dialogue problem is a voice problem, which is a character problem, which is a theme problem. It’s all connected.
When the Ecosystem Is Out of Balance
Sometimes you’ll feel that something’s wrong with a story but you can’t name it. Often, it’s an ecological problem — something’s out of balance.
Maybe your setting is too neutral, not shaping character or plot. Maybe your voice doesn’t match your theme. Maybe your structure and content are working against each other instead of together.
In “Figurines,” imagine if the descriptions were sparse instead of detailed. We’d lose the class consciousness that drives the cruelty. The ecosystem would collapse.
In “Mr Jenkins,” imagine if the memories were in chronological order instead of associatively triggered. We’d lose the way trauma works, the way present disasters summon past failures. The ecology would fail.
In “After the Ball,” imagine if the sisters were sympathetic instead of grotesque. We’d lose the dark comedy, the feminist rage. The story wouldn’t hold together.
When something feels off, don’t just fix the obvious problem. Look at the whole ecosystem. What’s missing? What’s not feeding into what? Where have you separated things that need to be connected?
Everything Matters, Everything Connects
Here’s what thinking ecologically means for your revision:
You can’t just “add more setting” without considering how it affects character and pace and voice. You can’t change your narrator without restructuring the story around what they can and can’t know. You can’t shift the tone without adjusting every single sentence.
Everything in your story exists in relationship. Your job isn’t just to create good characters, compelling plots, vivid settings. It’s to create an ecosystem where everything feeds into everything else, where each element depends on and strengthens the others.
When it works — when the ecology is healthy and balanced — you’ll know it and readers will feel it. The story has integrity. It holds together. It feels inevitable, like you couldn’t change a single thing without unraveling the whole.
Writing Prompts
Prompt One: Map Your Story’s Ecosystem
Take a story you’re working on and draw it like an ecosystem. Put each major element (character, setting, voice, structure, theme) in a circle. Draw arrows showing what feeds into what. Where does setting shape character? Where does voice determine structure? Where are the connections weak or missing?
Prompt Two: The Keystone Test
Identify what you think is the keystone species in your story — the one element everything else depends on. Now remove it. Rewrite a page without that element. What collapses? What changes? If nothing much changes, it’s not your keystone. Keep looking.
Prompt Three: The Ripple Exercise
Change one element deliberately:
Shift the season your story takes place in
Change the gender of your narrator
Tell it in a different tense
Move the setting from urban to rural
Now track what else has to change. What details shift? What becomes impossible? What new possibilities emerge? This shows you how interconnected your elements actually are.
Hope you have enjoyed this month’s craft focus. Happy writing and editing!
With love,
Amanda 💙
Ready to transform your writing journey?
WestWord isn't just another literary journal. It's a movement toward more mindful, meaningful storytelling that brings healing, peace, and unity to our divided world.
Join our writing community for just £14/month and unlock:
✨ Weekly 1-hour flash fiction writing Zoom sessions
✨ Monthly 1-2 hour craft workshops with replays
✨ Exclusive in-depth craft posts with deep insight and unique writing prompts
✨ Submissions to ALL themed editions and the annual WestWord Prize
From craft development to publication opportunities, membership gives you everything you need to grow as a writer.
Save £28 with annual membership — that's two months free — and makes each workshop, craft post, writing session and submission just £1.73 each!
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Hi Story Lovers,
I’m delighted to reveal the cover of WestWord’s first ever charity anthology and invite you to the launch party for Dislocation.
On Wednesday 20the May, 7–8pm UK time, we’ll be gathering on Zoom to celebrate twenty-three brilliant flash fictions on the theme of home. I’ll be saying a few words about how the anthology came together, and four of our contributors will read from their stories.
Dislocation began with a simple belief: that stories can do more than entertain. Profits from sales goes to St Mungo’s, who work tirelessly across the UK to end homelessness and help people rebuild their lives.
The event is free, but if you’re able to make a small donation to St Mungo’s at checkout, it would mean the world. Spaces are limited as I can only have so many people in a Zoom meeting so if you would like to come, do book as soon as you can!
With love,
Amanda 💙
Ready to transform your writing journey?
WestWord isn't just another literary journal. It's a movement toward more mindful, meaningful storytelling that brings healing, peace, and unity to our divided world.
Join our writing community for just £14/month and unlock:
✨ Weekly 1-hour flash fiction writing Zoom sessions
✨ Monthly 1-2 hour craft workshops with replays
✨ Exclusive in-depth craft posts with deep insight and unique writing prompts
✨ Submissions to ALL themed editions and the annual WestWord Prize
From craft development to publication opportunities, membership gives you everything you need to grow as a writer.
Save £28 with annual membership — that's two months free — and makes each workshop, craft post, writing session and submission just £1.73 each!
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