In recent years, we’ve had work from one year’s competitions in the next year’s anthologies but this year, it looked as though it might be possible to go with authors’ wishes to have this year’s winners on this year’s Christmas present lists – It looked possible, and I think we’ve just about done it. The poetry and flash anthology, origami poems and towering stories, if ordered this week, will be with you by 10th December. If you’re in the UK, hooray! You can send them out as Christmas pressies. For those on the other side of the globe, we’ll send yours out first and cross our fingers!

About the book

These are works by the authors shortlisted in the 2017 Poetry and Flash Fiction Competitions. The winning works are included, and in some cases we have sets of poems or stories by those authors.

Poetry comp winner John Gallas heads the poetry section with How to Make a Chough – an origami poem, which gave us the title to the first section. Mandy Pannett’s It was easier then points to the dilemma of the writer in a grieving society; others have dark thoughts about towers, old and new – giving us the title for part two. Some escape into the garden, out into the wild or into the night of the city. We have familiar guides such as Jocelyn Simms, Roger Elkin, Andria J Cooke and AKS Shaw, and newcomers to our lists offering intriguing perspectives.

The poems range from pastoral celebrations to discomforting,alienating presentations of men and women; William Wood and Brian Charlton use long-familiar images from the art gallery to present a new world.

Birds flash in and out of sight throughout the poetry pages, from Indigo Buckler’s Estate Birds to Roger Elkin’s missing dead. Follow them if you can, through this folding of ideas and paper into the realms of flash fiction, where Jonathan Page, this year’s Flash Fiction Comp winner, heads the collection with his brilliant Horseplay; and the game of ‘how short can a story be?’ is won by John Holland, at 31 words, others pack marvels of comedy or philosophy into 100.

Welcome to a world of origami poems and towering stories…

All the contributors to this collection were winners or shortlisted authors in Earlyworks Press competitions during 2017.

The poets: John Gallas, Mandy Pannett, Jocelyn Simms, Lorna Liffen, Brian Charlton, Indigo Buckler, Danny Kent, Matthew Adamo, Ion Corcos, Sean Gibson, Elaine Beeby, Sue Kauth, Roger Elkin, Caroline M Davies, Andria J Cooke, Philip Burton, Glen Wilson, AKS Shaw, Abigail Elizabeth Ottley, Ruth Hanchett, Cecile Bol, Jennifer Richards, Richard Smith, Nico Volkerts, Christopher James, William Wood, Harvey Martin

The flash fiction writers: Jonathan Page, Cecile Bol, John Holland, Cedric Fox-Kirk, Ben Howels, Caroline Deacon, Jacqueline Winn, Catherine Perrins, Lisa Donoghue, Sharon Boyle, Supie Dunbar, Eirlys Chui, Laura Besley.

Cover art by Jim Littlejohn

Or you can order from your local bookshop or library.