Munster Literature Centre
Ionad Litríochta an Deisceart

Southword Subscribers’ Competition Results

Every year we hold a free-to-enter flash fiction competition and poetry competition exclusively for subscribers to Southword. In April all current subscribers are emailed a link and may submit up to three poems and/or three pieces of flash fiction; winners are published in our summer issue and receive the following: 1st Prize €150, 2nd prize €100, 3rd prize €75.

This year, we received about 220 poems and 60 flash fiction stories. The winners are as follows and appear in Southword 48.

Southword Subscribers’ Flash Fiction Competition winners

1st Prize

What To Do by Partridge Boswell

Author of the 2024 Fool for Poetry Prize-winning chapbook Levis Corner House and Grolier Poetry Prize-winning collection Some Far Country, Partridge Boswell is co-founder of Bookstock Literary Festival and troubadours widely with the bard band Los Lorcas.

2nd Prize

Among the Azaleas by Gary Finnegan

Gary Finnegan‘s fiction has appeared in Flash Fiction Magazine, Howl, The Ogham Stone, Ropes, and the Irish Independent. He has an MA in creative writing from Maynooth University. 

3rd Prize

The 1914 harvest is over by Mary Shovelin

Mary Shovelin is a Donegal-born writer living in Belgium. Her short stories have won the Bournemouth prize and the Write by the Sea competition, and have appeared in several anthologies.

Southword Subscribers’ Poetry Competition winners

1st Prize

Overproof Jamaican Rum by Jenny Mitchell

Jenny Mitchell has three poetry collections and has won numerous competitions including the Gregory O’Donoghue Prize. She is the first Poet-in-the-Community for Cork City Council Libraries.

2nd Prize

After by Treasa Purcell

Treasa Purcell is a Kerry woman at heart, living in County Roscommon. Her work has appeared in Epilepsy Ireland Magazine, Ragaire and Poetry Ireland Review.

3rd Prize

Fall Risk by Róisín Leggett Bohan

Róisín Leggett Bohan has work in PIR, Banshee, The Stinging Fly, The Pomegranate London and Beginnings Over and Over (Dedalus Press). Forthcoming poems in The Manchester Review and RTÉ Radio 1.

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