HORROR FANTABBLE COMPETITION 2016

The cash prize winners

1st place: What’s That Sniffing at my Window in the Middle of the Night by Rose Thurlbeck

2nd place: Loft Conversion by Denise Hayes

3rd place: The Perfect Family by Kester Park

 

Highly commended

Headhunted by John Hoggard

The Number Of The Beast by Celia Coyne

 

What the judges had to say

Shudder... a veritable horrorfest of an in-tray to wade through. We weren't sure we would get out the other side without needing therapy. Seriously, there were some ingenious tales and twists. And all crammed into exactly 666 words. Amazing! Our biggest challenge was in generating the long list. We each created our own long list and then compared. Then we did some rereading and discussing and added a few more. Then we whittled away at the long list, did some more rereading, had quite a lot of discussion, did even more rereading to make sure and then we had a shortlist. From the shortlist we intended whittling down to the final three, but in fact we ended up with more so we read them all again and whittled our way closer to our goal. And then we sat down for a final time to read through our short shortlist, to rank them and see where we were. It turned out we were all in agreement on the winners and also that we had another couple that were very close, which is when we decided to slip in a couple of highly commendeds. And once everything was agreed we finally got to know who we had awarded the prizes to. So big congratulations to Rose Thurlbeck, Denise Hayes and Kester Park and thank you all for an entertaining week's reading. We're looking forward to the anthology.

Annie & the judging team

 

What the editors had to say

AAAAGH! Just aaagh! We don't care about the unfolding horror, the terrifying events, the scary scenarios. What we care about are typos, missing words, inadvertent ambiguities and anything else that makes a story of 666 words lose its length. It's our job to polish these gems to literary perfection. Can you imagine the anguish in the editorial cells? Spurious words popped up, gaps opened from a carelessly missed word or two and had to be filled, and the word count shifted. 666 shrank to 665 ... 664 ... shot up again to 670 ... 671. What a nightmare! Nothing will console us and calm our jangled nerves but a stunningly successful anthology of terrifying tales. 

MAE and her long-suffering team

 

The professional contributions

Number Thirteen by Linda Acaster

Ouija by Stuart Aken

Can This Day Possibly Get Any Worse by Regina Puckett

His Spectre by John Scotcher

 

Sales of the anthology from this competition will contribute to an ongoing charity donation to EDS-UK.

 

Shortlisted stories

A Prologue by Rose Thurlbeck

A Walk In The Wood by Mark P Henderson

Entombed by Ulla & Marko Susimetsa

Facing Up by Richard Dixon

Headhunted by John Hoggard

Loft Conversion by Denise Hayes

The In-Terror-Gator by Isla Sandford

The Number Of The Beast by Celia Coyne

The Perfect Family by Kester Park

The Pond by Denise Hayes

The Statue In The Playground by Darren Grey

The Sufferers by Jack Mann

Under The Fig Tree by Brad Greenwood

What’s That Sniffing At My Window In The Middle Of The Night by Rose Thurlbeck

 

Longlisted stories

A Perfect Match by Denise Hayes

A Prologue by Rose Thurlbeck

A Walk In The Wood by Mark P Henderson

Assisted by Richard Dixon

Bad Vibrations At Stratisfest by Denise Hayes

Entombed by Ulla & Marko Susimetsa

Facing Up by Richard Dixon

From The Depths by Chris Chambers

Headhunted by John Hoggard

Jumping At Shadows by Jx Plant

Loft Conversion by Denise Hayes

Music at Full Moon by Melodie Trudeaux

Opening Doors by Penny Grubb

Parents Evening by CM Angus

The Gnome House by Fortune Selles

The In-Terror-Gator by Isla Sandford

The Needle And The Camel’s Eye by Rose Thurlbeck

The Number Of The Beast by Celia Coyne

The Perfect Family by Kester Park

The Pond by Denise Hayes

The Sands of Time by Ann Bupryn

The Statue In The Playground by Darren Grey

The Sufferers by Jack Mann

Three Wishes Jack by Carmody Lanes

Under The Fig Tree by Brad Greenwood

What’s That Sniffing At My Window In The Middle Of The Night by Rose Thurlbeck

 

#justimagine