Fish Anthology 2018

by Helen Chambers, Thiva Narayanan, Janet Smith Moore

Anthology of short stories, flash fiction stories, short memoir and poems - 40 winners from the 2017/18 Fish Writing Contests. Loop-de-loopy, fizz, and dazzle … unique and compelling—compressed, expansive, and surprising. – Sherrie Flick Every page oozes with a sense of place and time. – Marti Leimbach Energetic, dense with detail … engages us in the act of seeing, reminds us that attention is itself a form of praise. – Ellen Bass The standard is high, in terms of the emotional impact these writers managed to wring from just a few pages. – Billy O’Callaghan

Paperback

Reviews

[JimZ]

Gadzooks. I am the first (only) person to review this anthology on Goodreads...

This is the 6th anthology I have read, and I am giving this collection of short stories and short memoirs 4.5 stars. A treat to read these. My ratings have ranged from 3.5 to 5 over the last five volumes I have read. It’s an annual affair going back to I believe 2004.

From the Fish Publishing website: 1994 saw the first Fish Anthology, publishing eleven new writers. Now, forty new writers are published annually in the anthology. (Ten from each of the Writing Contests). Many of these writers have gone on to become household names. Fish Writers.
The writing contests are in four categories: short stories, flash fiction, short memoirs, and poetry. They are judged and the top 10 get selected for inclusion into the anthology, the top three from each are labeled as such and the other 7 are labeled as runners-up.

Here are my ratings for the short stories and memoirs. And here's the link to their main webpage: https://fishpublishing.com/ (Wikipedia description of Fish Publishing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_An... )

SHORT STORIES
1. Clippings — Helen Chambers — 3.5 stars [First Prize]
2. Herr Siegfried Ottmar — Thiva Narayanan —5 stars [Second Prize]
3. Beatitudes — Janet Smith Moore — 3 stars [third Prize]
4. Cranberry Sauce — Emma Seaman — 4 stars
5. Ginger Snaps — Helen Chambers — 3.5 stars
6. Drive All Night — Alan s. Falkingham — 3 stars
7. He Writes — Travis Elsum — 4.5 stars
8. Hope Is the Thing with Feathers — Georgina Eddison — 4 stars
9. Yana — Georgina Eddison — 5 stars
10. Psittacus Erithacus — Percy Hebert — 5 stars

MEMOIRS
1. What Was Once a City — Marion Moltero — 3.5 stars
2. Where the Track Forks Left and Where the Track Forks Right — Jane Fraser — 4 stars
3. Glue — Ruth O’Shea — 3 stars
4. Banbridge Lass — Wendy Breckon — 4 stars
5. Midwife’s Daughter — Saffron Marchant — 4.5 stars
6. Documented — Pauline Cronin — 4 stars
7. The Logic of Blue Pyjamas — Fiona Montgomery — 4 stars
8. Without Breaking the Air — Christina Sanders — 2.5 stars
9. Wilderness — Paul McGranaghan — 3 stars
10. Shell — Deborah Martin — 4 stars