Best British Short Stories 2023

is the author of six short story collections - "Mortality", "Ornithology", "The Dummy and Other Uncanny Stories", "London Gothic", "Manchester Uncanny" and "Paris Fantastique" - and seven novels, most recently "First Novel". He has edited more than two dozen anthologies and is series editor of "Best British Short Stories" for Salt, who also published his books-about-books, "White Spines: Confessions of a Book Collector" and "Shadow Lines: Searching For the Book Beyond the Shelf". In 2009 he founded Nightjar Press, which continues to publish original short stories in the form of limited-edition chapbooks. He lives in Manchester and London.

Alinah Azadeh is a British-Iranian writer, visual artist, performer and cultural activist. She has had short stories, poetry and articles published and broadcast. She is the inaugural writer-in-residence at Seven Sisters Country Park and Sussex Heritage Coast, UK, for South Downs National Park, leading 'We See You Now', a decolonial literature and landscape project supported by Arts Council England, which includes the podcast, "The Colour of Chalk".

David Bevan is a 2021 graduate of the Manchester Writing School's Creative Writing MA programme. 'The Bull' is one of two stories first published by Nightjar Press.

AK Blakemore is a novelist and poet from London. Her novels include "The Manningtree Witches" - winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize for a debut novel - and "The Glutton". She has published two full-length collections of poetry: "Humbert Summer" and "Fondue". Her work has been widely published and anthologised, appearing in the "London Review of Books", "Granta" and "The White Review", among others.

Gabriel Flynn is a writer based in Berlin. He was shortlisted for the "White Review "Short Story Prize in 2020 and is currently working on his first novel.

Jim Gibson lives in Newstead Village, Nottinghamshire, and is the author of a short story collection, "The Bygones" (Tangerine Press).

Lydia Gill is a writer, teacher and member of the Esk Valley Camphill Community in the North York Moors. She is a Writers' Block North East alumna, and a Northern Short Story Festival Academy writer. 'The Lowing' is her first published story.

Miles Greenwood is the Lead Curator at the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool and a writer from Stockport. 'Islands' was first published in "Extra Teeth" while he was living in Glasgow. It was his first short story to be published.

Kerry Hadley-Pryce lives and writes in the Black Country, UK. She has a PhD in creative writing and teaches creative and professional writing at the University of Wolverhampton. She co-edited "Writing Under Fire: Poetry and Prose from Ukraine & the Black Country", and has short stories published in "Best British Short Stories 2023", "Takahe Magazine", "Fictive Dream" and "The Incubator". She has had three novels published by Salt Publishing: "The Black Country", "Gamble", and "God's Country". "Lie of the Land" is her fourth novel.

Philip Jennings has an MA in Creative Writing from City College, New York and a PhD in English and Creative Writing from Lancaster University. He is a Bridport prize winner and his fiction has appeared in publications as diverse as "Evening Standard", "Unicorn Productions", "Encounter", "Penthouse", "The Pan Book of Horror Stories", "Astounding Little Alien Stories" (Barnes and Noble), "Panurge", "Punch", "Iron", and most recently "Personal Bests Journal" (2021 and 2022). He tutored for many years at City Lit Institute and other adult institutes including Roehampton University.