We asked all the shortlisted authors to provide us with a short biography – here’s what they have to say for themselves:

Alex Bruty has always lived in Swansea and doubts she will ever escape. She consoles herself by living in her imagination where unspeakable things are prone to happening. She has a MLitt in Creative Writing and focuses on writing short stories and flash fiction. Stories tend to arrive whilst she’s walking Mr Blueberry the whippet and Coconuts the lurcher; they have started to badger her for their share of royalties. She is currently mentoring with the Womentoring project and plans to keep doing so until they discover she’s an impostor.
List of Publications (all short stories)
‘The Cold Fire’  In Creative Writing Journal ‘From Glasgow to Saturn’
‘The Box’ In an Ink Pantry anthology.
‘You Me and The Moon’ Extract in ‘Glitterwolf’ magazine.
‘You Me and The Moon’ Published in full in ‘Chase the Moon’ magazine.
‘The Elephant’ due out on ‘Ink Tears’ in December

Andrew Gepp is a writer; he lives in North London.

Angela Graham speaks Welsh with a strong Ulster accent. She is a tv producer and writer. She is an award-winning feature film producer and has just made her first radio documentary, about Welsh war memorials, for BBC Radio Wales. She loves writing short stories and last year received a bursary from Literature Wales towards a collection. She recently had the pleasure of sharing a gig as a poet with Jasmine Donahaye, Gillian Clarke and Christine De Luca and has just finished five years of teaching documentary-making at Cardiff University.  She is currently producing a tv series about the ancestral DNA of Wales.

Bartle Sawbridge was born in Bath, and has lived in SE London for 30 years. He has had short stories performed on BBC Radio 4 and published by Arachne Press.
He has completed one novel, ‘A Piece of String’, and has a sequel in progress.

Cindy George is a writer and teacher based in Coventry. She has done many jobs, from advertising copywriter to music journalist, to teacher of academic English for foreign students.  She now mainly writes fiction and poetry. She has an MA in Writing from Warwick University, and two unappreciative cats.

For 35 years David Mathews  was a work psychologist. That gave him a license to mind other people’s business. He comes from Wales and lives in Bath and SW France. Recently his collection of short stories was shortlisted for the Impress Prize, Brittle Star magazine published his story ‘Florence, who made mustard’, and Audio Arcadia are currently recording ‘Removed’ about a man who looks for stones.

David Turnbull is a member of Clockhouse London Writers. His recent short fiction has appeared in Best British Fantasy 2014 (Salt Publishing), Life is a Roller Coaster (Kind of Hurricane Press) and Horror Uncut (Gray Friar Press). His story ‘He Slashed Some Lines For Wiskers’ featured in the October Liars’ League ‘Slash & Burn’ themed event.

Dizz Tate is a recent graduate, with a degree in English Literature and Creative Writing from Goldsmiths University. She writes poems, plays, and stories. She lives in London.  @dizzdizzdizz

Eamonn Griffin  sometimes writes short stories.
http://www.eamonngriffin.co.uk and @eamonngriffin

Emma Timpany was born and grew up in the far south of New Zealand. A pamphlet of her stories is forthcoming from Red Squirrel Press in April 2015 and a collection will be published by Cultured Llama Press in September 2015. Her most recent stories have appeared in Dream Catcher, The Interpreter’s House and takahē. She is one of the organisers of Falmouth-based live literature event, Telltales (www.telltales.org.uk).
www.emmatimpany.wordpress.com

Frances Gapper’s story collection Absent Kisses was published by Diva Books in 2002 and a flash fiction booklet The Tiny Key by Sylph Editions in 2009. Stories  have appeared in Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off, a Penguin anthology edited by Ali Smith, Sarah Wood and Kasia Boddy, the London Magazine online, the Reader’s Digest, Ireland-based magazine The Moth and Plymouth University’s Short Fiction.

Helen Morris lives and works in Essex. Her distinguishing features are the amount of washing she does (3 sons) and the amount of time she spends swimming. she has just started writing after a life spent reading and drinking. This is the second story she has written.

Jayne Pickering enjoys creative writing, especially experimental pieces, and reading literature of all genres. She is naturally curious and her life has been spent predominantly in academia (firstly reading Philosophy and English Literature and then undertaking degrees in Psychology).

Jodie Ashdown is studying an MA in Creative Writing at Cardiff University, focusing on science fiction, horror and post humanism through prose. She is an avid surfer, has backpacked all over the world and really enjoys a nice glass of red. She has just started to hold her own creative writing workshops in and around Cardiff, and has previously had a poem published in ‘Furies: An Anthology for Women Warriors’.

Lada Redley is an emerging writer living in London, she is doing MA English Language and Creative Writing at University of Westminster. Lada’s flash fiction piece ‘A Stranger with no Agenda’ has been recently published in  online magazine The Wells Street Journal. Lada loves travelling and enjoys her life in London.

Max Dunbar was born in London in 1981. He recently finished a full-length novel and his short fiction has appeared in various print and web journals. He also writes criticism for 3:AM and Butterflies and Wheels. He blogs at http://maxdunbar.wordpress.com/ and tweets at http://twitter.com/MaxDunbar1.

Paul B Cohen is a native of Manchester, He read English at the University of Leeds, took a Master of Arts in English at Vanderbilt University, and gained a Master of Professional Writing from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. His plays have been produced in LA, Miami, Orlando, and New York City. He is now focused on writing literary fiction. Recent short stories have appeared, or are forthcoming, in ‘Poetica Magazine’ and ‘Conclave: A Journal of Character’.  His tale ‘Lecha Dodi’ has just won the Moment-Karma Foundation Short Story Competition for 2014. http://www.paulbcohen.com

Pauline Walker was commissioned to write a short story by StrongBack Productions and a sonnet celebrating the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a Dream’ speech for Tangle International’s tour of south west England.
Her short story ‘Always Smiling’ was read at Are You Sitting Comfortably by White Rabbit.  And she has had a poem published by Forward Poetry.
Pauline is currently writing a novel.

Peter Adkins is a writer based in Canterbury. His writing has previously been published in magazines, anthologies and journals – and on one occasion, on the inside of a bus. He is also the director of Bookmarks Festival in Northamptonshire.

Pippa Gladhill‘s work has been supported by Arts Council bursaries, her stories have won awards, been broadcast on Radio 4, Radio 3, and been read at spoken word events in Bristol and Bath. She have recently begun writing plays which have received script in hand performances at the Ustinov Studio, ( Theatre Royal, Bath) Rondo Theatre (Bath) and  Marlowe Studio (Canterbury).

Rebecca J Payne is a science fiction author from Cambridge. She has previously had work published in Interzone, Ethereal Tales, Dark Currents, Looking Landwards and Weird Lies.

Rhiannon Jones has loved stories for as long as she can remember and having worked in a Story Museum and as an oral storyteller, is now developing the courage to write herself.

Rory McCarthy is a recent university graduate and is, so far, completely unpublished. He is mainly influenced by modernist novels and poetry, and recent writers that hark back to them, such Teju Cole and Lydia Davis.

Rosalind Stopps has had several short stories published, and several performed at Liars’ League in London and New York.  She has recently completed a novel set in a shoe shop.

Sarah Evans has had dozens of stories published in magazines and anthologies. Highlights include: appearing in the 2008 Bridport anthology; having several stories published in the acclaimed Unthology series (Unthank Books); recently winning the inaugural Winston Fletcher Prize with her story ‘Acclimatising.’ She’s had work published by (amongst others) Bloomsbury, Writers’ Forum, Earlyworks Press and Rubery Press, and performed at live events in Faversham, Leicester, Hong Kong and New York.

Scott Lewis started to write fiction in 2012, having previously been a journalist in the UK and China. There he wrote his first book, a travel guide. He is currently working on his first novel and has had short stories published in several anthologies including Wizard Tower Press’s Airship Shape and Bristol Fashion. In his spare time he enjoys playing sport, gaming, hiking, fencing, and collecting both Lego and pith helmets.

Sheila Scott has recently returned to writing after thirty years varied employment as a chambermaid, barmaid, floor-cleaner, waitress, vet, bookseller and environmentalist.  However, she enjoys sitting with pen and paper turning idle thoughts into text and doodles most of all.  She was born and has lived in Glasgow most of her life with one happy decade in Yorkshire.  Her husband is first proof reader for all her work.

Tannith Perry is an American living in Bristol. She has lived in all kinds of places including West Africa, New York City and Sidmouth, England. She currently teaches ballroom dancing in order to earn enough money to enter competitions and buy books. Her short story All is Music was shortlisted in the Bristol Short Story Prize and published in the Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology Vol. 7. She is working on her second novel.

Tim Bancroft began writing as soon as he could hold a pencil, creating fantastic worlds and stories that bemused his family. He has written numerous articles, shorts and a few books on SF, fantasy and historical gaming and is now writing fiction.

Wendy Gill lives in Hertfordshire. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Middlesex University. Her first short story Moving Mike was published in Stations by Arachne Press. Her story, The Deal, was selected for an inaugural anthology, Words and Women One, published by Unthank Books. She has written the libretto for a musical That Man which previewed this year and is working on a collection of stories, entitled The Female Condition.

William Davidson lives in York and works as an English tutor for deaf students. His stories have been published in Synaesthesia Magazine and The Puffin Review.