O'Shea wins 2023 Stinging Fly/FBA Fiction Prize for 'uncanny' story

Leopold O’Shea has been named the winner of the 2023 Stinging Fly/FBA Fiction Prize for his "expertly controlled" story "The Afterlife".

Established in 2022, the €2,000 (£1,740) prize, sponsored by Felicity Bryan Associates, is awarded annually to an emerging fiction writer published in the Stinging Fly, an Irish-based literary magazine, during the previous year. 

O’Shea’s winning story, "The Afterlife" is his first ever published story, and appeared in the Stinging Fly’s winter 2022 All New Writers Issue.It can also be read on the Stinging Fly website. O’Shea was presented with the award at the Stinging Fly’s Summer Issue launch at the International Literature Festival Dublin on Saturday (20th May). The writer is based in Sligo and is writing a collection of stories. 

Judges included author Colin Barrett, Stinging Fly contributing editor and author Mia Gallagher and Felicity Bryan agent Aoife Inman. The panel was chaired by Inman’s colleague Angelique Tran Van Sang, and Thomas Morris, author and editor-at-large of the Stinging Fly. 

The judges said: “What we loved about ’The Afterlife’ was the counterpoint between the eerie, off-kilter precision of the voice and the brutal inevitability of the events that unfold within its taut frame. This is an assured, uncanny, expertly controlled story that would pass as a delightfully droll and low key comedy of suburban manners if it wasn’t also a chilling fable flecked with unforgettable moments of glancing horror.”   

The judges also commended two further stories: "Switch Bitch" by P Kearney Byrne and "Fire Island" by James Ward. 

Emer O’Hanlon won the inaugural Stinging Fly/FBA Fiction Prize in 2022 for "Diana in a Lonely Place".