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Another year gone by, another Limnisa short story competition, with nearly five hundred stories sent in from across the world. As before, it’s been exciting to read stories from  east and west, with such varied experiences described in remarkable ways. So many takes on ‘stay rude.’ One popular strand this year, relating to Covid-19, involves loneliness and old age. Another, the ‘me too’ movement. Stay Rude itself was sprayed onto walls, implied in bad behaviour, and even taken up as a name, with ‘Rude’ being asked not to leave.

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Some stories were very well written but never quite stepped off the pavement. Others had zany ideas but were told in a clumsy way, some times by gifted writers for whom English was not the first language. We wanted something surprising. Something well told with real characters. We ended up finding too many to fit on our short list of twenty. Even worse was having to whittle these down to end up with our top five, and it’s been near impossible to fix on a final winner. Each judge had personal favourites. Each story had its own merits. 

Writing is not like athletics. Every story has its own flavour, and what it makes you think and feel is at least partly subjective. We don’t hold the competition to be like a knock out contest. We want to encourage new writing. 

We enjoyed reading so many stories. We hope you enjoyed taking part this year and we hope you keep writing away. 

Best wishes,

The Limnisa team.