My short story, “Spark“, was shortlisted in the Fowey Festival Short Story Competition 2014. The Fowey Festival celebrates the work of Daphne Du Maurier, 
and author who (like a lot of people) had an enormous impact on me when I was growing up. The House on the Strand remains one of my favourite books (my mother prefers Rebecca). I really enjoyed my take on a Du Maurier story, although I doubt anybody but me would see the similarity. If you’d like, you can read the full story on the site here.
Unfortunately, the initial plans by the Fowey Festival organisers to publish the shortlisted stories have fallen through. It may be surprising to non-writers just how often this sort of thing happens, although I had experience of this from academic writing; you can have work that goes through committee, peer review, and endless revision, only for it to all to fall through months or even years later because the publisher folds or the lead editor changes job.
It’s very frustrating for everybody involved. I think the best advice is to keep your expectations measured, try not to get over-excited, and don’t believe your work is getting published until you have the cold hard copy in your hands.
In the mean time, after having had a few requests on the subject, I’ve made an addition to this site to include a short stories section with a couple of example stories. I hope you’ll take a look, leave a comment if you feel inspired to do so, and share them if you enjoy them.
