London Independent Story Prize, 2026, Longlist

Announcement!

Thank you so much for sharing your stories with us.

We were grateful for the unexpectedly large number of submissions, which kept us busy over the past few months. We truly enjoyed reading new work and appreciated the effort behind every submission.

Given the nature of the competition, we unfortunately couldn't feature every piece we liked. We recognize that all competitions are subjective, and want to remind you that much of the writing we couldn't include had strong potential to be picked up by other platforms, or needed reediting.

Please don’t be discouraged if your submission isn’t on the list. We’d still love to read your new work, as well as an edited version of your previous submission.

Congratulations to our selected writers and poets!

We can't wait to feature you and your writing journey on our platform!

The Winners, Finalists and Selections will be announced later this week.

Watch this space!

Please note that the lists below are not in any particular order and do not imply any scoring.

P.S.: We'll be in touch with the selected writers very soon! Please check your spam folder if you don't hear from us by the end of the week.

Short Story Longlist 2026

Joyanna Lovelock         - A Labyrinth of Echoes

Sarah Fitzgerald             - Belgium, December 1918

Aysel Vazirova                  - Blue Pond

Mohammad Samad   - Familiar Ratios

Deborah Bennison      - Fighting with giraffes and siren lamp posts

Tabitha Bast                      - God, Whatever

Karon Alderman             - Hag Stone

Morwenna Lawson      - Hungry Ghosts

Bette Guy                             - It Started With a Coin

Abby Fermont                  - It's Murder on the Crematorium Floor

Saffron Pretorius           - My Grandmother's House

Isabelle Spurway          - On Time

Erini Loucaides               - Relentlessly Prismatic

Mia Roberts                       - Seats at McDonald's

Priya Mehra                        - Tarsem's Tandoor

Rathi Guhadasan          - The Board Meeting

Brian John Feehan       - The Collector

Juliet Hill                               - The First Three Lives of Irina Asimova

Najeeb S.A.                        - The Librarian of Lost Afternoons

Kenneth D Kelly              - The Magic Asile

Wendy Buonaventura                 - THE MAN IN THE GREY COAT

Tony Warner                       - The Man with the Monk

Rowena Chadwick-Smith       - The Museum of Gentle Things

Jaime Gill                             - The Never-Weres

Emily Clarkson                - The Toss Of A Coin

Dana Baylous                   - The Widow

Helen Kennedy               - There’ll be no more trouble now

Madeleine Armstrong                 - This Charming Man

Andrea Marion                                   - Through a Tunnel Lightly

Steffan Morgan                                 - Until the Sun Goes Down

Emma Rose Dee                              - Whalefall

Flash Fiction Longlist 2026

Guy Arnold                -The window

Isabel Jane McCann   -The Sock Thing

Isabel McCann               -Things to Do with the Small Bedroom

Caroline Watson           -Sequins and lies

Jeffrey-Michael Kane  -Subtraction

Jeffrey-Michael Kane  -The Keeper of Silent Things

James Woodard             -THE END

David Lovell                       -A Trip to the Park

Peter Rehn                          -Unpacked Boxes

Anne Thomson                -Higher Faster

Sally Curtis                         -What did you do, Baby Girl?

Allen Sarkisyan               -The Unfocusing Technique

Sarah Fitzgerald             -The Song of Mary Halley

Tracey-Anne Plater      -That Pesky Ipad

Susan B Borgersen      -Song without words

Leslie Tolchinsky           -Someone Always Did

Sharon Marie Hier        -Mutiny On The body

Melissa Ganendran    -They Want to Chop it Down

Pete Armstrong               -Echoes of Choking

Lisa Wiley                            -Mind the Gap

Kelly Rees                            -The Unfinished Portrait in my Wardrobe

Tabitha Potts                     -Negative Space

Glenn Holmes                 -Talk to the Hand

Larissa Hahn                    -Almost Nothing

David O' Dwyer               -Motel Matches

Sharon Marie Hier        -Pawprints

Sharon Marie Hier        -Ripple Effect

Anji Brown                           -Learned Behaviours

Katalin Abrudan             -Lullaby

Rachel Gosling               -The perfect societal solution

Poetry Longlist 2026

Aileen Sheehan              Allydonia

Alessandro Caneve    Round Windows

Alice Evans                         Narcissus & Chaffinch

Amber Morgan                The Wee Mushroom

Andrea Lynn Fisher     As Soft as the Snow Beneath the Hooves of My Deer

Anna Maria Mickiewicz              Summer in Sefaord

Cassandra Filice           Born on the Waves

Charlie Brice                     Chipper

Christian Ward                Thinking of my love at Brownsea Island

Corina Skentzou-Macmath   They Said

Dumile Maninjwa         The little Vendor

Eleanor Perkins              Easier Than Explaining

Eman A.E.                            A Child, Today?

Emily Tudor                        Last Night's Ward

Fleur Brown                       Almost home

Hélène Demetriades                   A body's fairytale

Ivi Szaboova                      Upon Waking

Jess Richards                   Surveillance: the route to heaven

Jocelyn Watson              TIME

Jonathan Chibuike Ukah          Down the Drain

Julia Paillier                        Sisters

Kirsty Crawford               Twin Pox

Laurie Hollman               Oh, Lake

Mark Bird            Hers and Mine

Nete                        We poets should be Heroes

Nienke van der Veen        A bird's call

Settit Beyene                    Terminal

Shane Raymond               To be read at a wedding

Susan Irvine                     Once the Sea

Suzanna Fitzpatrick           Skin