We are thrilled to announce the winners of the 2025 Bristol Short Story Prize competition! This year’s judging panel – Kate Johnson, Jan Carson, and Peace Adzo Medie – praised the breadth and emotional honesty of this year’s shortlisted entries and chose the following three from among 1,800 submissions.
Zoë Meager of Aotearoa New Zealand has been awarded first place for her haunting story Things with bodies, a tale that judges described as “clear, careful, nothing-wasted prose,” infused with “deep love” and “unthinkable yet inevitable grief.” Judge Kate Johnson likened its impact to Shirley Jackson, applauding its bold, precise storytelling and exploration of motherhood, sacrifice, and sorrow. Meager’s writing has appeared in Granta, The Offing, Overland, and more. In 2024, she was runner-up in the Seán Ó Faoláin International Short Story Competition, received an honourable mention in the Zoetrope All-Story Short Fiction Competition, and was a Sargeson Fellow.
Second place goes to London-based S-L Santana for her vibrant, layered story 1992. Jan Carson praised its “compelling, funny and acerbic” voice and described the experience of reading the story as “being transported into someone else’s life and home.” Santana, a graduate of Brunel University and Aberystwyth University, draws inspiration from relationships, community, and the rhythm of oral storytelling. 1992 began as a writing prompt but grew into a story that blends memory, research, and childhood perception with adult understanding.
Taking third place is Laura Morris of Cardiff, for The Weight of a Man, which Peace Adzo Medie called “emotive and vivid” and “illuminating in its exploration of family, love, and care.” Morris’s work has been published in The Dublin Review, The Lonely Crowd, Banshee, and Southword. Her story Cree won the Rhys Davies Short Story Competition in 2022. Originally from Caerphilly, she now teaches English at a Welsh-medium secondary school.
Congratulations to all this year’s shortlisted authors. Catch their stories in our Volume 17 anthology, available from Tangent Books.