RA & Pin Drop Short Story Award

29 June 2018

Shortlist Announced for Pin Drop Short Story Award 2018

We are delighted to announce the shortlist for this year’s Pin Drop Short Story Award, an award in collaboration with the Royal Academy of Arts. The winning story will be announced and narrated by Gwendoline Christie on 11th July at a special awards ceremony at the RA.

Shortlist

David Butler, Scorched Earth

Nat Luurtsema, Howling Pack of Undesirables

Niamh MacCabe, Steer the Dark Skies Blue

Anthony Quinn, Trick Bag

Stefanie Seddon, Breaking Horses in Waiuta

Kathryn Simmonds, The Social Smoker

Stuart Snelson, Space Invaders

Maria Thomas, Lucky

Sophie Ward, Sunbed

Asif Zubairy, Playing God

The award is judged by Pin Drop Co-founders Elizabeth Day and Simon Oldfield, and the RA’s Director of Artistic Programmes, Tim Marlow. Commenting on this year’s award, Pin Drop Co-founder and award judge, Simon Oldfield commented:

“Congratulations to all the writers featured in this year’s shortlist for the Pin Drop Short Story Award. We have been impressed by the extraordinary quality and diversity of the stories selected for the shortlist, which represents an exciting range of genres, tone and subjects. It has been thrilling to see such fresh and accomplished writing emerge from a talented pool. Each story surprises, delights and leaves a lasting impression long after reading.”

24 June 2017

Cherise Saywell announced as Winner of the RA & Pin Drop Short Story Award 2017

Dame Penelope Wilton, announced Cherise Saywell as the winner of the RA & Pin Drop Short Story Award 2017 for her exceptional story, Morelia Spilota. The presentation was followed by a live narration of Morelia Spilota by Dame Penelope Wilton, which will be released as a podcast soon.

‘‘The quality of writing and the ambition of the writers seems to get stronger each year. It was a pleasure and a privilege to judge the prize and to encounter this year’s short-list.’

– Tim Marlow, Artistic Director, Royal Academy of Arts

‘It was a privilege to judge this year’s RA & Pin Drop Short Story Award and select the winning story from such a strong shortlist. Cherise Saywell is a worthy winner for her superb story, ‘Morelia Spilota’, which is written with great confidence and verve. It is a brilliant short story.’

– Simon Oldfield, Founder, Pin Drop

‘Cherise’s story is a superb example of the short form: elegant, lyrical and with a quiet, restrained power. It is written with such surety of tone and pace that reading it, you feel at once you are in the hands of a master storyteller.’

– Elizabeth Day, Founder, Pin Drop

The RA & Pin Drop Short Story Award 2017 is supported by Audible.

18 May 2017

Longlist Announced for the RA & Pin Drop Short Story Award 2017

We are delighted to announce the longlist for this year’s RA & Pin Drop Short Story Award – an award in collaboration with the Royal Academy of Arts.

Dame Penelope Wilton, the award-winning actress who has enjoyed an extensive career starring in numerous films and television productions including Calendar Girls, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Downton Abbey, will announce and narrate this year’s winning story on 23rd June at a special awards ceremony at the RA. The award is judged by Pin Drop Co-founders Elizabeth Day and Simon Oldfield, and the RA’s Director of Artistic Programmes, Tim Marlow.

Simon Oldfield commented:

“This year, we have received an unprecedented number of entries from across the globe and the quality has been extraordinary. Pin Drop champions superb short fiction and we’re delighted to see both established and emerging writers on the longlist, with stories that capture unique voices and new writing with confidence and verve.”

Longlist

Adrian Todd Zuniga, Lincoln Wimbley Writes a Story at 37,000 Feet

Anna Stewart, The Way I Breathed

Anne O’Brien, These Silver Fish

Anthony McGuinness, Fair Exchange is No Robbery

Antonia Honeywell, Dora Maar and the Secret Tree

Arthur Allan, Before the Curtain

Carol Farrelly, Emergency

Cathy Thomas, Pigs

Catriona Ward, Lula-Belle

Cherise Saywell, Morelia Spilota

Ciarán Collins, Angela

Craig Burnett, Feathers Thick with Oil

Douglas W. Milliken, Heart’s Last Pass

Emily Bullock, Freshwater

Hanna Ali, Bloated

Hannah Persaud, Dress Rehearsal

Harry Godfrey, Lobster Man

Honoria Beirne, Rafferty

Jarred McGinnis, Rough Beasts

Joanna Campbell, Brad’s Rooster Food

Jude Cook, Being Here

Juno Baker, The Rules of the Game

KM Elkes, Shoreham Street

Melanie Whipman, Undine

Philippa Holloway, Like a Message

Rachel Stevenson, English Beach

Rebecca F. John, Paper Chains

Ruth Brandt, Going West

Sarah Evans, My Mother’s Story

_______

Supported by Audible.

04 July 2016

Juliet Stevenson announces Claire Fuller as winner of the RA & Pin Drop Short Story Award 2016

Award-winning actress, Juliet Stevenson, announced Claire Fuller as the winner of the RA & Pin Drop Short Story Award 2016 for her exceptional story, A Quiet Tidy Man. The presentation was followed by a live narration of A Quiet Tidy Man by Juliet Stevenson, which you can listen to here.

‘I’ve loved judging the RA & Pin Drop Short Story Award. The talent was plentiful, fresh and exciting and Claire Fuller is a very deserving winner.

– Simon Oldfield

‘Claire Fuller’s brilliant story is such a worthy winner: both darkly comic and deeply moving, with a modern-gothic undertone that reminded me of Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected. It’s going to be a wonderful addition to the Pin Drop archive.’

– Elizabeth Day

The RA & Pin Drop Short Story Award 2016 is supported by Audible.

11 May 2016

Lionel Shriver on her new novel The Mandibles – Pin Drop in the i

27 June 2015

Stephen Fry announces Bethan Roberts as winner of the RA & Pin Drop Short Story Award 2015

Stephen Fry, at a special event at the Royal Academy of Arts, narrated Ms. Featherstone and The Beast by Bethan Roberts, the winner of the inaugural RA & Pin Drop Short Story Award. You can listen to Stephen’s narration here.

Stephen Fry commented: “Pin Drop is a wonderfully innovative scheme that unites the written arts with the visual. In iconic venues like the Royal Academy, new and established writers have their works read, discussed and questioned by enthusiastic audiences. The presence of the written word in public spaces filled with visual art reminds writers, whose work is so often private and inward, of the capacity of literature to reach out, uniting it with the family of all the arts where it belongs. I really believe in Pin Drop and felt immensely rewarded to be involved.”

The quality of the entries of this year’s award was high and varied and included a cast of wonderful characters from life models to lion tamers. Returning a shortlist of exceptional quality, the judges selected six stories which each do what a good short story should do: invites us into their world, engages from the first sentence and ends up telling us something about ourselves. In such a competitive field, we needed a truly exceptional winner and our choice was unanimous. Bethan Robert’s evocative story Ms. Featherstone and The Beast, is both tender and poignant. It deals with big themes – love, war and loss of innocence – with a restrained lightness of touch. And, like all the best short stories, its impact lingered and continues to do so.

Bethan’s first novel The Pools was published in 2007 and won a Jerwood/Arvon Young Writers’ Award. Her second novel The Good Plain Cook, published in 2008, was serialized on BBC Radio 4’s Book at Bedtime and was chosen as one of Time Out’s books of the year. My Policeman, the story of a 1950s policeman, his wife, and his male lover, followed in 2012, and was chosen as that year’s City Read for Brighton. Her latest novel is Mother Island. She also writes short fiction (in 2006 she was awarded the Olive Cook short story prize by the Society of Authors), and drama for BBC Radio 4. She lives in Brighton with her family.

The judging panel included Pin Drop co-founders Simon Oldfield and Elizabeth Day, and the Royal Academy’s Director of Artistic Programmes, Tim Marlow.