Our anthology of entries to the Michael Round Prize is now available on Amazon! The paperback is priced at £8.99 and the Kindle version at £3.00 (outside the UK it may be a few days more before it appears). The cover design, by our own Jo Bodley, includes elements that refer to several of the stories. The main pomegranate motif is from the Palestinian embroidery tradition of tatreez, mentioned in the winning story.
Please do buy copies (they make great Christmas presents) and give us good reviews.
At last! Our congratulations, and thanks to everyone from all around the world, who supported our competition. You can hear an audio recording of the announcement here…
Stuart Wilks-Heeg has recently begun writing fiction. In his other life, he is a Professor of Politics at the University of Liverpool. He lives in Crosby, Merseyside and, from 2023-25, he was the stadium announcer for Marine Football Club.
Fay has had a number of writing successes and a much greater number of rejections! She has now retired and wonders how she ever had time to go to work. Fay is concerned about environmental issues and is keenly green.
Celia Gatward – Missing
Celia Gatward is a passionate writer who loves crafting worlds and bringing characters to life. With a professional background in marketing and media, she has always found time to immerse herself in storytelling. Her writing has been featured in The Swan Theatre’s New Playwright Festival, and she has written three radio plays for Upstage Surrey Theatre Company, with another currently in production and a live stage play scheduled for 2026. Alongside her dramatic writing, Celia enjoys exploring short stories and poetry and continues to develop a children’s novel that she hopes will one day find its way to publication.
Benjamin Graham – Why Don’t You Just Keep Going
Born in a former mining community in Durham, England, Ben’s love of literature grew from reading the works of Joyce, Hemingway, Ginsberg and several other writers a teenage boy should really have no interest in reading.
After several years struggling to pay rent as a freelance journalist, Ben became a copywriter and editor in Edinburgh. He now divides his time between writing, reading, and frequenting the drinking establishments of renowned Edinburgh authors in the hope of finding some clue to their genius or, failing that, a good dram of whisky.
Katie Weatherford is an actress, writer, and director. She has been telling stories since she was a child. In 2023, she wrote and directed an award-winning short film, “The Murder Party: Offering Unconventional Solutions to Heartbreak.”
Katie is passionate about the art of creation and creating with kindness.
Judging in the Michael Round Prize is now complete, and all entrants have been sent an email letting them know (if you entered and haven’t heard, get in touch at the same email you used to enter).
But who has won?
The result will be announced at a special meeting on 10 November, where the entries that won first and second places will be read. Not to be missed – put it in your diary! (10 November, not December!)
The Michael Round Prize 2025 is now closed. Thanks to everyone who took part. The competition, which was free to enter, is for pieces of fiction up to 1,200 words long, and is dedicated to the memory of our late and much-missed Chairman. The competition attracted more than 270 entries from 37 different countries. Thanks to our hard working panel, the judging process is already well in hand and we will announce the results at our November meeting.
We will greatly miss Michael Round, our energetic chair, who passed away on 6 July, leaving a gap which will be very hard to fill.
After a life of military and teaching service, Michael became an invaluable mentor to many local writers. He published some of their books as well as his own, the latest of which, entitled Genius, came out very recently.
Croydon Writers 