I’ll admit it. I’m a bit of a weirdo when it comes to charts and lists. I love categorising and compartmentalising, finding a place for everything and everything in its place. This mental tic, this odd OCD, has started to bleed into my writing and reviewing. Five years ago, I started to put together a chart of the best short fiction I’d read over the course of that year. For want of something better to call it, I dubbed it The Andy Awards (or the Andys for short.)
Now, four years later, the Andys are still going strong. And though they’re not exactly the short fiction Oscars, and though this ‘opening ceremony’ hasn’t been rigged-up by Danny Boyle, I do think there’s some great recommendations of short fictions, new authors and indie magazines which will give readers a few new tastes they might otherwise not have experienced.
And this is important. Short Fiction doesn’t get the recognition it deserves. There is only one dedicated short fiction reviewing site in the world – The Short Review. Arts Council grants are being cut back and indie magazines are struggling. Short story writers are not getting the financial recompense they deserve, let alone the readership. And that’s why I continue to persevere with this list every year.
Strength to Strength
The first year I ran the competition was 2009. That year, the winner was David Conyers, for his story ‘Black Water’, which featured in Jupiter SF magazine. Second place went to ‘The Lion’s Den’, by Steve Duffy, from the Nemonymous anthology, Cern Zoo. And third place was awarded to Rachel Kendall’s ‘Birth Control’, from her collection The Bride Stripped Bare.
In 2010, despite wide-spread industry shoulder-shrugs, the Andys continued. This time, gold was carried off by Wayne Price, whose story ‘The Golfers’ starred in The Route Book at Bedtime. Wells Tower received the silver medal for ‘Executors of Important Energies’, in the chess-fiction anthology, Masters of Technique. And the bronze was draped around the neck of Tania Hershman for her story, ‘Sunspots’, from her collection The White Road and Other Stories. You can read the full chart here. 2010 also saw the addition of a supplementary category, Flash Fiction, and the inaugural award was carried off by Valerie O’ Riordan’s ‘Mum’s the Word’, in the Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology Vol. 3. Indeed Valerie’s story was so good, it practically demanded its own category, and maybe in the coming years, when we see an Andy of Andys (similar to the Booker of Bookers which was won by Rushdie) we may see this story carrying off the biggest award of the lot. No mean feat for a story of much less than a thousand words.
2011 saw the Andys going global. This was a glitzier, whole shebangier award show. I rolled out a red carpet in my front room and drank champers and smoked cigars, and hammered the whole chart out on my blog on my website. The publication of the list was met with shock and awe, dudes, shock and awe. Last year’s winner was the story ‘Great Rock and Roll Pauses’ by Jennifer Egan, from her Pulitzer Prize winning collection A Visit from the Goon Squad. I am still unsure whether Jennifer was prouder of her Andy, or her Pulitzer. By a hare’s breadth, in second place was ‘The Rediscovery of Death’ by Mike O’Driscoll, which featured in the Des Lewis edited The Horror Anthology of Horror Anthologies. And in third (and by no means was third the worst, just as second was not the best, and first did not have a hairy chest) was ‘Peacekeeper’ by Alan Heathcock, in his collection, Volt. Last year, I also continued with the Flash Fiction category, and again, there was only one choice for the winner: David Gaffney. So good is Gaffney at flashing (ummm) I could have chosen any one of his collection, The Half-Life of Songs, but ‘Live Feed’ eventually won out, after some schizophrenic deliberation from your one-man judging team.
2012 was, of course, famous for the Olympics in London, but in time it will also be remembered for the sheer scale of the Andy Awards, which went stratospheric. You could see the show from space. It received INCREDIBLE publicity on social media and on TV. It was, quite literally, the biggest event ever. The top three in terms of FLASH FICTION were, at 3, ‘OMG U Guyz’ by Christy Leigh Stewart, in the Terror Scribes anthology; at 2, ‘Leap Second, Emendations and Errata’ by Renoir Gaither, in Lucid: A Collection of Experimental Flash Fiction, and carrying off the award for the second year running David Gaffney, whose story ‘Don’t Be Rough’ featured in Beautiful Scruffiness 4. And there was an all-female top three in my short fiction category. In third place was ‘The Discord of Being’ by Alison J Littlewood, from the Where are we Going? Anthology, ed. Allen Ashley; in second place was ‘Philanthropy’ by Suzanne Rivecca, in Granta 120: Medicine; and first place was ‘Fringe’ by Jen Campbell, in ShortFICTION 5.
And So, Without Further Ado…
Billy Crystal’s done his whittering on and Ricky Gervais has made some ill-advised gibe, and now we have the drum roll as we prepare for the first award category in this evening’s show… This year I’ve flim-flammed with the rules again, so there’s no separate category for Flash Fiction…
The Andy Award for Short Fiction 2013
20. ‘Watching Emily Dress’ by Gary Budgen, in Sein und Werden Not Quite Human issue
19. ‘Disappearing into the World’ by Ágúst Borgþór Sverrisson, in Twice in a Lifetime
18. ‘A Sweet Shop in the West End’ by Ágúst Borgþór Sverrisson, in Twice in a Lifetime
17. ‘Wild Strawberries and Moonlight’ by Charles Haddox, in The Germ Magazine August 2013
16. ‘Flight’ by Tony Lovell, in Wordland 3: What they Saw in the Sky
15. ‘Lord of Pigs’ by DeAnna Knippling, in Horror Without Victims, ed. Des Lewis
14. ‘Tea at the Midland’ by David Constantine, in Tea at the Midland and Other Stories
13. ‘Valdir Peres, Juanito and Poloskei’ by Antonio Peres, in Granta 121: The Best of Young Brazilian Novelists
12. ‘Vent’ by L.R. Bonehill, in Horror Without Victims, ed. Des Lewis
11. ‘The First Day of the Fourth Week’ by Ágúst Borgþór Sverrisson, in Twice in a Lifetime
10. ‘351073’ by Jeff Gardiner, in A Glimpse of the Numinous
9. ‘Like Nothing Else’ by Christopher Morris, in Horror Without Victims, ed. Des Lewis
8. ‘Alphonse’ by David Constantine, in Tea at the Midland and Other Stories
7. ‘The End of Endings’ by Steven Hall, in Granta 123: 20 Best British Novelists Under 40
6. ‘A Brief History of Fire’ by Jennifer Vanderbes, in Granta 122: Betrayal
5. ‘Underland’ by Robert Macfarlane, in Granta 124: Travel
4. ‘An Island’ by David Constantine, in Tea at the Midland and Other Stories
3. ‘Crow Fair’ by Thomas McGuane, in Granta 125: After the War
2. ‘The Man at the River’ by Dave Eggers, in Granta 124: Travel
1. ‘Deep’ by Richard Smyth, in LS13 – 20 Best Authors in Leeds Under 40, ed. Wes Brown
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