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The QuietManDave Prize returns for 2024 to celebrate 12 incredible shortlisted authors and honour prize namesake Dave Murray.

The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony hosted at Manchester Met’s Manchester Poetry Library on December 13. The event will celebrate the shortlisted entrants, with performances of the top three pieces in each category, and honour Murray’s memory and achievements.

Run by the Manchester Writing School and Manchester Theatre School at Manchester Met, the QuietManDave Prize showcases emerging talent across flash fiction and non-fiction, offering £1000 for winners of each category as well as runner-up prizes.

This year’s prize received more than 900 entries and the judging panel selected a shortlist featuring six entries in both the Flash Fiction and Flash Non-Fiction categories.

Murray was a keen theatre critic, performed poetry and loved flash fiction. He entertained and informed many through his QuietManDave blog and the prize was developed in recognition of his achievements and passion for writing, something which he embraced later in life.

The Flash Fiction shortlist includes Kerry Andrew, Susannah J. Bell, Kate Carne, Simon Gilbert, Jay McKenzie and Julia Rea. The Flash Non-Fiction Shortlist includes Daniel Addercouth, Steve Ashton, Angela Cheveau, Heather D. Haigh, Mary Fitzpatrick and Faye Peden.

Ahead of the 2024 QuietManDave award ceremony, aAh! caught up with a number of the finalists to discuss their entries, inspiration and advice for budding writers.

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The Flash Fiction shortlist

Dr Kerry Andrew – ‘Back Home‘

Kerry Andrew (they/them) is a UK-based writer, composer, and performer with a background in experimental vocal and choral music, music-theatre and community music. The author of three literary novels titled Swansong, SKIN, and We Are Together Because, Andrew is the recipient of the Edinburgh Short Story Award 2024 and has been shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award. 

Touching on the inspiration behind their piece Back Home, Andrew says: “the piece is entirely autobiographical and based on a formative experience of mine aged ten. I wrote a poem version of this about ten years later, drawing on some old diaries of mine, and only very recently revisited it again, honing it into something that might feel like one breath. Turns out that sometimes it takes a decade to get something into the right shape.” 

Andrew tells us about the part of writing they enjoy the most, citing “the splurge – writing as instinctively as possible to get the word count up” as their favourite. “I’m a big believer in first creative responses being so often the best ones, but I enjoy the refining process too. I’m not so keen on the bigger editing jobs that come later, but they always make it much better, so I grit my teeth and get it done.”

Andrew’s simple advice to emerging writers is to just write: “Carry a notepad around with you. I often write on my phone and my laptop, but I really find the craft of pen to paper feels like something more meaningful and sometimes magical. Enter competitions, go to writing groups, read other budding writer’s work and read published books widely.”

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Susannah J. Bell – ‘The Angel Within‘

Susannah J. Bell is an emerging science-fiction author and writer of “other strange and surreal works”. Born in London but raised in South Africa, Bell returned to London aged 20 to pursue writing and a host of other jobs from bookseller to library assistant at University College London. 

When asked about the inspiration behind ‘The Angel Within’, she says: “The piece is basically about alien ships which land on Earth and the reaction of people and governments to their presence.” She cites “mankind’s poor reaction to anything different and the instinctive desire to destroy anything it doesn’t understand” as a key theme in her story.

Sharing her reaction to being shortlisted, Bell says: “I am truly honoured and utterly delighted. I’ve been writing into a void for a very long time with no feedback, and I was over the moon that someone found my tiny piece of fiction good enough.”

Looking toward the future, Bell shares an insight into her upcoming works: “I am currently working on a literary novel about magic set in a very dark age. I have many series on the go, including a cheerful modern fantasy about a girl who finds a magical realm, more literary fiction… the list goes on. I’m never not writing.”

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Jay McKenzie – ‘Florence Nightingale is late for her eyebrow threading appointment‘

Jay McKenzie grew up in the North East before attending Bretton Hall College of the Arts in Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Her debut novel Mim and Wiggy’s Grand Adventure was published in 2023 and her work also appears in Maudlin House, Fictive Dream, The Hooghly Review and more.

On her creative process, McKenzie describes a frenzied assembly of ideas jotted in notebooks and on post-it notes: “Old school notebooks, getting up long before dawn to write before everyone else gets up, having to go to work and scribbling ideas in my diary in between ‘grade this work’ and ‘organise this playwriting festival’. I’m a post-its and highlighters and pencil scribbles sort of woman. It’s a bit chaotic actually. Or it would look that way to an outsider, but I feel like I know where all the bits are.”

McKenzie goes on to describe how it felt to be shortlisted as “completely fantastic.” She adds: “And of course, riddled with imposter syndrome. Especially when I read the other shortlisted pieces and saw the other writers on the list.”

Up next for McKenzie is her novel How to Lose the Lottery, which will be published by HarperFiction in 2026. McKenzie says: “I can’t wait to get that out into the world and I’m looking forward to doing some promotional activities with it. I also have a piece in the forthcoming Murals Issue of The Hooghly Review which I’m looking forward to sharing.”

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Kate Carne – ‘Conversing with the Comma‘

Kate Carne is an accomplished fiction writer having won several awards for her stories from the Hammond House Award to the Wasafiri Prize. She has also been shortlisted for a number of other prizes and is the author of Seven Secrets of Mindfulness: How to Keep Your Everyday Practice Alive.

On ‘Conversing with the Comma’, Carne says the piece is “the convergence of punctuation and our climate crisis, focussed around a butterfly. Our lives are as fragile as that butterfly’s.”

Sharing a word of advice for new writers, Carne says: “Somebody once said that the way to increase your success rate is to increase your failure rate. Certainly, this is good advice for writers. Not everything you produce will be brilliant. But each time, each piece provides a tutorial. The main thing is to just keep going and keep learning.”

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Julie Rea – Flesh + Bone

Julie Rea is an award-winning writer and has been the recipient of several prizes from The Scottish Book Trust Next Chapter Award to the Book Edit Writer’s Prize. She has been published in literary journals and anthologies, such as Gutter, The Cormorant, and New Writing School Scotland. Rea is also a playwright and has had her work performed in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

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Simon Gilbert

Simon Gilbert is an Irish writer living in Belfast. His story ‘Perfect Water’ won the 2023 Mairtín Crawford Award for Short Story. When not reading or writing, he’s thinking about music, cooking, or raising houseplants.

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The Flash Non-Fiction Shortlist

Daniel Addercouth – ‘Psychometry‘

Daniel Addercouth is a Scottish writer who now lives in Berlin, Germany. Working as a translator in his spare time, Addercouth’s literary works have appeared in the likes of Trampset and New Flash Fiction Review, among other places.

When asked how it feels to be shortlisted, Addercouth says: “It’s an absolute thrill and honour. I can’t believe that I ended up on the shortlist from over 900 entries. I’m very grateful to the judges for believing in this piece and to Manchester Writing School for organising the competition.”

“I’m fascinated by the idea that objects can hold memories,” Addercouth adds, when exploring the themes behind his submission. “The title, ‘Psychometry’, refers to the practice in parapsychology of touching an object in an attempt to gain knowledge about the object’s past or its owner. Now that my parents are gone, any items that they used and handled on a daily basis have a special emotional resonance for me.”

Addercouth’s published work The Good Prizes was selected for Best Small Fictions 2024 and can be read in New Flash Fiction Review.

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Steve Ashton – ‘Bringing Up the Bodies‘

Steve Ashton, a former playwright and performer, began his writing career in the 80s covering adventure sports for magazines. Ashton transitioned between acting, writing, and teaching, and after the rejection of his tenth fiction novel, he quit writing altogether.

Now 70, Ashton has rediscovered his love for writing and explores the exploits of his youth through fiction and non-fiction. Reflecting on his beginnings as a writer, Ashton recalls an unlikely inspiration: “Aged 6, I entered a writing neatness competition and won a Lego set. This was in 1960, shortly after Lego first became available in the UK. Thus began a lifelong fascination with writing and plastic bricks.”

He goes on to discuss the difficulties of getting fictitious work published: “Finding a home for fiction is a tougher proposition. I’ve written ten novels and published none, which is very dispiriting.”

Reflecting on being shortlisted for the Prize, he adds: “Being longlisted is a huge confidence boost. Beyond that, judging subjectively increasingly comes into play, so reaching the shortlist is an unexpected bonus.”

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Heather D Haigh – ‘When I Say You Look Tired, I Mean You’re Going To Die‘

Heather D Haigh is a working-class, chronically ill writer hailing from Yorkshire. Haigh is published by Oxford Flash Fiction, Fictive Dream, The Phare, Timberline Review, and WestWord among other publications.

Haigh tells us about her background as a writer, and involvement in the arts more broadly: “I started writing almost three years ago, having written little more than shopping lists since O Level English decades ago. I found myself increasingly pulled towards creative pursuits. I also dabble with photography, art, and yarn crafts, with the aid of wonderful gadgets that help the vision.”

On being shortlisted for the prize, Haigh shares: “Being a little-contributing member of the world can be tough on the ego. Putting something out that is appreciated by even one person is hugely validating. To be on a list with these amazing writers blows me away. I have no words that are adequate.”

Other published work by Haigh’s includes: I’m Not Thinking About, Quiet as a Mouse, and It Was Easy For a Dress-Makers Dummy to Fall For a Man With a Bird-Cade Head.

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Angela Cheveau – ‘To the Grasshopper in bottom right of Van Gogh’s Olive Orchard, 1889‘

Angela Cheveau is an MA Creative Writing student at Manchester Met and a full-time carer. Cheveau has been shortlisted for a number of prizes, including The 2024 Bridport Prize for Poetry, Writing on the Wall’s 2023 Pulp Idol fiction competition, and the 2023 Nine Arches Press Primers competition just to name a few. She has also been published in poetry anthologies by Writing on the Wall and Written Off Publishing.

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Mary Fitzpatrick – ‘I Had To Go To Liverpool‘

Mary Fitzpatrick is a retired catering and office worker who finds catharsis in writing, using it as a way to work through difficult periods in her life. In her spare time, she enjoys walking, writing, and learning French.

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Faye Peden – ‘Kodak Christmas Remains‘

Born and raised in New Zealand, Faye Peden journeyed to Britain in 1989 and settled in Shrewsbury. She began writing poetry as a therapeutic exercise and has had her very first prose piece shortlisted for the QuietManDave non-fiction category.

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All shortlisted pieces and profiles of the finalists can be read in full for the Flash Fiction and Flash Non-Fiction categories. Find the longlisted entrants on the QuietManDave Prize website.

The winners of the QuietManDave 2024 Prize will be announced on Friday 13 December, 2024 at an awards ceremony hosted by the Manchester Poetry Library.