QuietManDave Prize 2022 longlist revealed

The longlist for the QuietManDave Prize, a short-form writing prize that honours much-loved Manchester critic Dave Murray, has been revealed today (22 September).

Running every two years, the QuietManDave Prize is named in honour of Dave Murray, a popular Manchester-based writer and critic who passed away in 2019, and is run by the Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University, in conjunction with the Manchester School of Theatre.

The prize celebrates emerging short-form writers and offers a top prize of £1,000, plus runner-up prizes, for 500-word maximum written pieces in Flash Fiction and Flash Non-Fiction categories.

The longlist has been selected from 500 entries by a panel of judges chaired by Shane Kinghorn, who is Senior Lecturer in Drama and Contemporary Performance at Manchester Metropolitan and has previously worked in London as a director and dramaturg, alongside Syrian born author Dima Alzayat, and short story writer, essayist and poet Kate Feld.

Kinghorn, on behalf of the judging panel, said: “We were delighted with the high standard of entries this year in both the fiction and nonfiction categories, and the process of narrowing the field down to the longlists was not easy. Our top choices were stories that had a freshness of approach and an originality of voice that really stood out and had a lasting impact on us. Congratulations to those on the longlist, and thanks to everyone who entered this prize, dedicated to the memory of a very special man”.

The longlists for the 2022 QuietManDave Prize are: 

Flash Fiction Prize

• Kathryn Aldridge-Morris, Bristol, UK - Double Lives
• Paul Bassett Davies, UK - Handsome 
• Nick Black, London, UK - The Lost Kingdom
• Sorrel Briggs, Leeds, UK - You Were Seven
• Stuart Cavet, Southampton, UK - What Happened
• Pauline Clooney, Kildare, Ireland - My Mr Shakespeare
• Sara Crowley, West Sussex, UK - The Grief Path
• Ian Humphreys, West Yorkshire, UK - Whose Story?
• Fhionna Mac, Clyde Valley, UK - The Man on the Beach
• Niamh Mac Cabe, Leitrim, Ireland - A Marram Grass Cradling
• Jo Lygo, Staffordshire Moorlands, UK - All We Wanted
• Rosaleen Lynch, Cork, Ireland - Free-diving Five Hundred Million Years Ago
• Leeor Ohayon, Norwich, UK - Prayers 
• Nicholas Ruddock, Canada - Dupont Street 
• Kate Scott, London, UK - Double Fantasy
• Diane Simmons, Bath, UK - Unwatched
• Mark Stewart, UK - Rip Tide

 Flash Non-Fiction Prize

• Kathryn Aldridge-Morris, Bristol, UK - Unvoiced
• Bradford Gyori, Winchester, UK - Hotel Woman
• Sara Hills, Rugby, UK - Door Slam, 1980
• Jupiter Jones, Abergavenny, UK - How to Insert a Zip Fastener
• Benjamin Judge, Littleborough, UK - The Child Can Not Touch the Owl
• Kate Karko, Hertford, UK - Ghost Walking
• Annie Lord, Edinburgh, UK - Cyst - Hand - Spine
• Ruby Martin, Manchester, UK - A Review of Big Boys in One Impossible Act
• Patricia Newbury, Cairo, Egypt - To the man sitting in the row behind me at UGC Odéon … clutching at half-mast
• Tim Relf, Leicestershire, UK - Last night I dreamt the perfect poem
• Josephine Rose, UK - 100ml of Eternity
• Josephine Rose, UK - At Home I Told the Walls
• Peter Scales, Derby, UK - A house fire
• Diane Shipley, Sheffield, UK - Rough Winds
• Edwina Supyue, Manchester, UK - A movement meditation on/with chicken soup
• Susan Wigmore, Abingdon, UK - Balancing Act

Shortlists for the two prizes will be announced in early October, and the winners revealed at a celebration event at Manchester Metropolitan on October 27. To book tickets please visit the event webpage