Lucy Caldwell

Georgina Harding

Danny Rhodes

Rory Gleeson

Richard Smyth

A group of teenage boys take turns assessing each other’s changing bodies before a Friday night disco… A grieving woman strikes up an unlikely friendship with a fellow traveller on a night train to Kiev… An unusually well-informed naturalist is eyed with suspicion by his comrades on a forest exhibition with a higher purpose… The stories shortlisted for the 2021 BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University take place in liminal spaces – their characters find themselves in transit, travelling along flight paths, train lines and roads, or in moments where new opportunities or directions suddenly seem possible. From the reflections of a new mother flying home after a funeral, to an ailing son’s reluctance to return to the village of his childhood, these stories celebrate small kindnesses in times of turbulence, and demonstrate a connection between one another that we might sometimes take for granted. The BBC NSSA is one of the most prestigious prizes for a single short story, with the winning author receiving £15,000, and four further shortlisted authors £600 each. James Runcie is joined on the judging panel by a group of acclaimed writers and critics including: Booker Prize shortlisted novelist Fiona Mozley; award winning writer, poet and winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize, Derek Owusu; multi-award winning Irish novelist and short story writer, Donal Ryan; and returning judge, Di Speirs, Books Editor at BBC Radio.

The BBC National Short Story Award 2021

In 1989, 18-year-old John Finch spends his Saturdays following Nottingham Forest up and down the country, and the rest of the week trudging the streets of his hometown as a postal worker. Leading inexorably towards the FA Cup semi-final at Hillsborough, the worst sporting disaster on British history, 'Fan' glides between 1989 and 2004, when the true impact of this tragic day becomes evident.

A Novel

'An excellent debut novel, definitely in my top ten of the year.' - Scott Pack, The Bookseller 'Rhodes asks important questions about social justice, but also tells a compelling human story. An impressive debut' - Mary Fitzgerald, New Statesman, 20 October 2006 'A-S-B-O - you think that makes you special. But it doesn't. It means you were stupid enough to get caught, that's all. I should have one. I should have the biggest ASBO there is. I want a poster with my face on.' When JB is served with an ASBO for joy-riding and sent to paint beach huts for the summer in Kent, it looks as if he has a chance to turn his life around. But then he encounters Moey and his gang, and his future seems to hang in the balance. Separated from his mother and under a strict curfew, only his attraction to Sal seems to give him a reason to keep going. But a storm is coming that threatens to shatter his hopes and destroy the relationship that could redeem him

Asboville

When sixteen-year-old JB is served with an ASBO, he is sent to live with his uncle in a tiny caravan by the sea. Each and every day he must paint one hut on the beach. It's a chance for him to turn his life around, a chance to pay something back for all that happened in the city. As the summer days drag by, JB's feelings of frustration and isolation grow. Only his tentative relationship with Sal offers any chance of rescue. But a storm is coming that threatens to shatter his hopes and destroy the relationship that could redeem him.

After a year of dead end jobs and killing time, Scottie comes to a decision that will change his life forever. It will bring him more money than he's ever known, teach him skills he's never imagined, lead him to discover things about himself he'd never have believed. It will carry him from the sink estate of his birth to a land that's foreign in every conceivable way. And it will bring him home again across thousands of miles to a confrontation with an undeniable truth.

Danny Rhodes

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