Best British Short Stories 2021

currently working towards a PhD in creative writing at Edge Hill University, Ormskirk.

Iphgenia Baal is the author of The Hardy Tree (A Story About Gang Mentality), Gentle Art, Merced Es Benz, Death & Facebook and Man Hating Psycho.

Emma Bolland is an artist, writer and academic. She is co-editor at Gordian Projects and co-runs oHPo Radio at the Sheffield Institute of Arts, Sheffield Hallam University.

Tom Bromley is an author, editor, creative writing tutor and ghostwriter. His books include ten works of fiction and non-fiction under his own name, and a further fifteen ghostwritten titles, including prize-winners and bestsellers. He has taught novel writing for the Faber Academy since 2013, is Director of Fiction for the Professional Writing Academy and in 2017 founded the Salisbury Literary Festival. He writes a weekly column, 'Word Up', for various newspapers in Wiltshire and Hampshire, and reviews fiction for the regional Living Magazines. He lives in Salisbury.

Gary Budden is a writer, editor and co-founder of award-winning independent publisher, Influx Press. He is the author of London Incognita (Dead Ink, 2020), Hollow Shores (Dead Ink, 2017), the Shirley Jackson Award-shortlisted Judderman (Eden Book Society, 2018), and The White Heron Beneath the Reactor (2019) and These Towers Will One Day Slip Into the Sea (2021), with artist Maxim Griffin. He lives in Enfield, north London.

Jen Calleja is a writer and literary translator based in Hastings. In 2020, she published her first short story collection, I'm Afraid That's All We've Got Time For, with Prototype, and was shortlisted for the Short Fiction/University of Essex Prize. She has translated over a dozen literary works from German, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2019 for her translation of Marion Poschmann's The Pine Islands.

Robert Dewa has always written fiction, and in her twenties published three historical novels with Robert Hale. While studying for various degrees she published poetry and short fiction, including a first short story collection, Holding Stones (Pewter Rose Press, 2009). In 2013 she published a memoir, The Memory of Bridges, and a contemporary novel followed: The Esplanade (Weathervane Press, 2014). Since retiring from university teaching, she has been writing poetry and short stories again, and in November 2017 won the Willesden Herald prize with her story 'Dark Song'. Her first novella, The Flight of Marian Smith, was published in 2021.

John Foxx is a singer, musician, recording artist and graphic designer. A pioneer of electronic music in the UK, he was the original lead singer of Ultravox until leaving to pursue a long and successful solo career. His first collection of short stories, The Quiet Man (Rocket 88 Books), was published in 2020.