The Rhys Davies Short Story Competition is a distinguished national writing competition for writers born or living in Wales. Originally established in 1991, we are delighted to manage this prestigious award on behalf of The Rhys Davies Trust and in association with Parthian Books.
About Rhys Davies
Born in Blaenclydach, near Tonypandy in the Rhondda, in 1901, Rhys Davies was among the most dedicated, prolific, and accomplished of Welsh prose-writers in English. With unswerving devotion and scant regard for commercial success, he practised the writer’s craft for some fifty years, in both the short story and the novel form, publishing in his lifetime a substantial body of work on which his literary reputation now firmly rests. He wrote, in all, more than a hundred stories, twenty novels, three novellas, two topographical books about Wales, two plays, and an autobiography.
Awards
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1st Prize - £1,000 sterling and publication in a short story anthology to be published by Parthian Books in 2026.
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Runners-up/Finalist Prizes - £100 each and publication in a short story anthology to be published by Parthian Books in 2026.
The 2026 Shortlist
Dean Atkins was born and raised in the Rhondda and studied Theology in Cardiff and Oxford. As a priest of the Church in Wales for thirty years, he worked for a third of that time as Youth Officer. He currently lives and works in Butetown, Cardiff and across the neighbouring communities of Splott and Grangetown. In recent years he has turned increasingly to creative writing, and his short story, ‘The Tonypandy Riot,’ was shortlisted for the 2025 Bridport Prize. Much of his writing focusses on Wales, memory, masculinity, identity, and place.
Instagram: @deanjatkins | Substack: @deanatkins1
Hannah Dafforn-Belloube is a writer, translator, and editor from Eglwyswrw. She read Classics & English at St. Anne’s College and holds postgraduate diplomas in Spanish language and translation. She has work featured in New Statesman, Wales Arts Review, Folding Rock, New Welsh Review and the ELN’s #RivetingReviews. Moving between linguistic – especially Anglophone, Hispanic and Lusophone – and rural/urban worlds and ways of being, her writing explores migration, eros, Otherness, fragmented selfhood, and the ethical stakes of converting lived experience into narrative. After years of moving between Pembrokeshire, Oxford and Madrid, she has found her home in São Paulo.
Lucie Donahue was born and brought up in Bangor, north Wales. She read jurisprudence at Oxford University before returning to Wales and working as a television documentary director at the BBC in Cardiff. Her short story, 'The Year of New Windows', was published in Issue 004 of Folding Rock. She is an alumna of the Faber Academy and now lives in Somerset where she is working on her first novel.
Instagram: @luciedonahue
Ben Fergusson is the author of three novels and a book of non-fiction. His debut, The Spring of Kasper Meier (2014), won the 2015 Betty Trask Prize, the HWA Debut Crown and was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. He is a literary translator from German, and in 2020 won a Stephen Spender Prize for translated poetry. His forthcoming novel for children will be published by Faber and won the Faber Action! Prize 2026. He lives in Abergavenny with his husband and son and is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Cardiff Metropolitan University. [Photo Credit: Christian Werner]
Instagram: @ben_fergusson_ | LinkedIn: ben-fergusson-29960a1b
Sybilla Harvey grew up in Abergavenny and later completed an MA in Creative & Life Writing from Goldsmiths, University of London. Now a creative director for a production company in New York, she returns home often. Her short stories have been published in New Welsh Review and Mslexia. She was shortlisted for the 2025 Rhys Davies Short Story Competition.
Instagram: @sybilla.harvey
William Hutton is a Welsh writer based in London. Born in Cardiff and raised in the Vale of Glamorgan, he studied English Literature at Cambridge University and received an MSt in Creative Writing from Oxford. Recently, he graduated from Columbia University’s MFA in Fiction as a Chair’s Fellow. His writing has been recognised by the McCormack Writers Center and published in Columbia Journal, Engelsberg Ideas and the Guardian. His first novel, currently on submission, is set in the Welsh Marches during a bleak winter in 1192, at a time when the line between the physical and spiritual world is blurred.
Instagram: @williamhuttonwriter | Website: williamhutton.co.uk
Issariya Morgan is a freelance writer and ceramic artist from Aberystwyth. Her fiction explores themes of nature, gender, transformation and instability, which comes in part from her mixed heritage and having grown up on the wild Welsh coast. Alongside this, she is frequently inspired by ideas from visual art, music and cinema. The Rhys Davies Short Story Competition is her first listing.
Instagram: @issariya.maker
Michelle Penny is a writer based in Swansea, with roots in Anglesey and Caerphilly. Her work draws on Welsh history, folklore and landscape. She was shortlisted for the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize and has had work published in Folding Rock and Uncommon magazine.
Instagram: @michellepennywrites
Diana Powell was born in Llanelli, studied English at Aberystwyth University and now lives in Pembrokeshire. She won the 2022 Bristol Short Story Prize, the 2019 ChipLit Award, and the 2014 PENfro Prize. Her stories have also been placed in the Society of Authors ALCS Tom-Gallon Award, the 2019, 2021 and 2022 Bedford competitions and the TSS Cambridge Prize.
Her work has featured in many anthologies and journals, including Best (British) Short Stories 2020 and New Welsh Review.
Recent longer works include things found on the mountain (Seren) and The Sisters of Cynvael, which won the Cinnamon Press Literature Award.
Instagram: @dianapowell_writer
Satterday Shaw has an MA (with distinction) and a PhD in Literature from Essex University. Her short fiction and articles have been published in Mslexia, The London Magazine, Wasafiri, the Rhys Davies Short Story Award Anthology, New Welsh Review, Wales Arts Review and other places. A neurodivergent writer, she lives in Eryri. Her daughter, Naomi, encouraged her to write, and gave her permission to share stories about experiences of life-threatening illness. Satterday lived in African-Caribbean-English families from the age of five. Her jobs have included waiting tables, film and video director/editor, anti-racist education, family carer, and teaching creative writing.
Instagram: @satterdayshaw
Beth Webster is a short fiction writer and has previously been published in These Pages Sing. She is currently studying a Creative Writing degree part-time while working in the NHS. She grew up in Carmarthenshire and lives near Pontyclun with her husband and egregiously spoilt cat.
Instagram: @bwebs_ter2310
Rhys Owain Williams is a writer from Swansea, Wales. His work has been published in magazines including Gutter, Magma, The Aftershock Review and Poetry Wales – who recently named him as a ‘poet to watch’ as part of their 60th anniversary celebrations. Rhys has collaborated on artistic commissions with the likes of Art in Site, Nationwide Building Society and NHS Wales, and has had his writing translated into Welsh, Greek and Latvian. His first poetry collection That Lone Ship was published by Parthian in 2018, and he is currently working on a second. He is a Hay Festival Writer at Work.
Instagram: @rhys_owain | Facebook: RhysOwainWilliams
Bluesky: @rhysowainwilliams | Threads: @rhys_owain
Guest Judge 2026 - Tyler Keevil
Tyler Keevil grew up in Vancouver and moved to Wales in his twenties. He is the author of several novels and the story collection, Burrard Inlet (Parthian). His books have been translated into various languages and he has received a number of accolades for his writing, including the Journey Prize, The Wales Book of the Year People’s Choice Award, and The Missouri Review Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize. He teaches Creative Writing at Cardiff University, and lives in South Wales with his family.
