The inaugural Sunday Times Short Story Award, administered by Booktrust (the world’s largest short story award with a first prize of £25,000) has just announced it’s longlist. Judges for the prize include authors A S Byatt, Hanif Kureishi, Lynn Barber, Nick Hornby and the literary editor of the Sunday Times, Andrew Holgate.

The shortlist will be announced on 7th March and the winner revealed at the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival on 26th March.

In the office we were please to see several litfest past guests and friends on the list… Jackie Kay, A.L. Kennedy, Adam Marek and Gerard Woodward.

The longlist in full, and a reminder that at Poetry Bookcase we can order any book in print for you for collection in shop or posting to you (p&p £1 per book).

· Richard Beard – James Joyce, EFL Teacher
· Nicholas Best – Souvenir
· Sylvia Brownrigg – Jocasta
· John Burnside – Slut’s Hair
· Will Cohu – Nothing But Grass
· Joe Dunthorne – Critical Responses to My Last Relationship
· Petina Gappah – An Elegy for Easterly
· Jackie Kay – Reality, Reality
· A.L. Kennedy – Saturday Teatime
· Adam Marek – Fewer Things
· Charles Mosley – Constraint
· Chris Paling – The Red Car
· Ron Rash – Burning Bright
· Simon Robson – Will There Be Lions?
· Kay Sexton – Anubis and the Volcano
· Helen Simpson – Diary of an Interesting Year
· C.K. Stead – Last Season’s Man
· Rose Tremain – The Jester of Astapovo
· Gerard Woodward – Legoland
· David Vann – It’s Not Yours