Anam Cara Winners at Launch of 2012 Fish Short Story Anthology

Selected as the second-place winner of the annual Fish Short Story Competition is Jonathan Carr (in the centre) for his story "Takeover" and, as joint third-place winner, Fionna O'Rourke (on the right) for her story "Wrong Whiskey." Both read from their stories at the launch of the 2012 Fish Anthology, held in Bantry on Wednesday, 11 July. As part of his prize, Jonathan spent the week before the launch as a writer-in-residence at Anam Cara, working on his latest novel. Fiona first came to Anam Cara as a participant in Vanessa Gebbie's Short Fiction workshop in 2011. She returned this year for a week with two other participants in that same workshop who are already planning another reunion retreat in 2013.

At the conclusion of their evening of readings in St. Brendan's Church, a group of the authors published in the Anthology gathered for a photo. Included here is Michael Ray (fourth from the left on the back row), the second-place winner of the Fish Poetry Competition, judged by Billy Collins, for his poem "Before Flight." This is the first year that Anam Cara has awarded second prize, a week's residency, in the poetry competition. Jonathan is fourth from the right on the back row, and Fiona is on the far right of the first row. Clem Cairns, the editor of the Anthology and one of the Fish publishers, is sitting in the centre of the first row.

For more information about Fish writing competitions and to purchase the Fish Anthology 2012, go to http://www.fishpublishing.com/.