Tessa’s winning collection After the Funeral (Jonathan Cape) was unanimously selected as the best entry by the judging panel, following her previous win with Bad Dreams in 2018.
Receiving her award at a ceremony at Bloomsbury-based London Review Bookshop, she said: “I feel I have a special relationship with this prize now that I’ve won it twice!
“And they are such a lovely team at Edge Hill, so committed to literary values and to the short story. Awarding a prize for a whole collection rather than a single story makes it feel like a grown-up recognition of the long haul of short story writing, of writers’ long-term relationship with the form.”
The Edge Hill Prize celebrates emerging and established writers, highlighting the diverse voices and exceptional talents of contemporary short story writers from across the UK and Ireland.
Now in its 18th year, the £10,000 prize is the only national literary award to recognise excellence in a published, single-authored short-story collection.
This year’s judges were: writer Bernie McGill, who won the prize last year; Tom Conaghan, founder of Scratch Books; and Edge Hill alumna Harriet Hirshman, publishing manager at Dead Ink Books.
Judge Bernie McGill said: “The stories from After the Funeral present us with a cast of fully realised characters whose voices ring out clear from the page. Tessa Hadley is a writer with the lightest of touches who gives us stories that quicken the pulse, that catch at the heart. This is her brilliance: to go further, deeper, to explore the mystery of what it is to be human, of what’s eternal and of what’s true.”
Edge Hill University international student Alma Lilja, who is studying a masters in creative writing, won the Post Graduate Researcher prize for best short story submitted by a student.
The 24-year-old from Gothenburg, Sweden, said: “Winning has certainly served as a boost of confidence in my own ability to write short stories. I am currently working on two novels, and as always, I am writing poetry.
“And who knows, maybe I will turn some of those poems into short stories? That is, after all, how my winning story Our Town So Far Inland started out.”
Judge Harriet Hirshman said: “It was no easy task choosing a winner from the fantastic selection of stories from the Edge Hill students. In the end, Alma Lilja’s rich and luminous fable won us over with its fervent beating heart and important underlying message about the way we treat the natural world around us. Lilja is a writer to watch.”
Writer and academic Malachi McIntosh won the inaugural Debut Prize, worth £1,000, for his Parables, Fables, Nightmares collection (The Emma Press).
He said: “I’m thrilled, shocked, overwhelmed, stunned. Even being longlisted felt like an alien landing and inviting me on an adventure. Progressing through to the shortlist and then winning best debut is like a dream sequence. I’m honoured and want to live up to the recognition.”
Judge Tom Conaghan, who presented Malachi with his award, said: “The stories in Parables, Fables, Nightmares showed great poise to conjure the very real dilemmas of all-too-human characters.
“They are written with a fantastic syncopated poetry and uniquely fitting architecture. The collection itself displays a superb diversity which makes for an eclectic and edifying and very nourishing book.”
Founded in 2006, the Edge Hill Short Story Prize attracts entries from the best new and established writers. Ailsa Cox, the world’s first Professor of Short Fiction, founded the award to highlight the artisanship of short story writing and acknowledge the wealth of published collections available.
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March 5, 2025
