While the Circle remains closed as far as meeting up in person is concerned, the Short Story Group has been keeping up the momentum gained last year—when a whole flurry of members’ stories were read on Radio Leeds—with another flurry of successes.

John Biglands recently won the Cranked Anvil January Short Story Competition with Night Terrors. You can read his story on the Cranked Anvil Press Website here.

Pat Pickavance was longlisted in the same competition for Thursday as Usual. She’s also currently longlisted in the Flash 500 Short Story Competition for Wings. Another Cranked Anvil longlisting was also achieved by Miriam Moss for Elise and Sara.

A retrospective shout goes out to Abi Bolton who was longlisted last autumn in the Bath Literature prize, with her story The Killing, a fine achievement.

We’re also delighted to announce that Su Ryder has recently placed two of her wonderful short stories. A Canticle will appear in the Dark Lane Anthologies Volume 11 and All Our Pretty Widowers is set to be published in Neon Magazine, issue 54, out early next year.

Congratulations to Gail Mosley, whose entry for the Bournemouth Writing Prize, Keeper of Walks, has been selected for publication in one of the Fresher anthologies due to be published later this year.

Emma Storr developed four 15 minute programmes for Chapel FM’s festival Writing on Air on the topic of The Medical Eye. Although the festival was postponed because of Covid they were eventually transmitted in March and are available to be heard from the Chapel FM website here. They make for a totally fascinating listen.

Emma continues to be successful publishing reviews. As a former GP she was well placed to give an opinion on Quality of Life: A Post-Pandemic Philosophy of Medicine by Robin Downie. That can be read here. She’s also had a number of poetry reviews published by The London Grip: Unfolded from Olivia Dawson, Herd Queen from Di Slaney, and The Ministry of Flowers by Andrea Witzke Slot.

Finally, Stuart Fortey has the second of his Paget Brother Mystery novels published on Amazon. As a sequel to A Scandal in Scarborough, released about five years ago, A Case of Sapphires is available here.