5 April: Two Comma titles shortlisted for the Edge Hill Prize 2013!!
Many congratulations to Adam Marek and Jane Rogers, whose two collections - The Stone Thrower and Hitting Trees with Sticks - have been shortlisted alongside Jon MacGregor, Kevin Barry, Emma Donoghue and Lucy Wood.
More about the shortlist>>

30 April 2013: Gimbal is here!
The 'gimbal' interactive literary iPhone app is now available to download for free on the app store. Get it now and explore the world through fiction.
View on the app store page here>>
More about the history of the app here>>
Read an article about the app on The Bookseller news feed>>

5 April: Five Comma titles longlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Prize (aka 'The Frank').
1 April: Comma's Hassan Blasim headlines this month's edition of Words Without Borders.

20 March 2013: The Guardian on The Iraqi Christ
'Bolaño-esque in its visceral exuberance, and also Borgesian in its gnomic complexity... a master of metaphor.' - Full review.

25 March 2013: Hassan Blasim's The Iraqi Christ Book of the Month in The Skinny.
'His work never flinches from gore, sex, violence, blasphemy or misery – nor do these tropes ever feel exploitative. The rich combination of pitch-black gallows humour and fantastical flights from reality are utterly compelling – more real than anything you have read before about Iraq.'
Read the full review here>>
More about the collection here>>

21 March 2013: ''Rogers displays a knack for drawing on life's subtle and uncanny parallels.'
Jane Rogers' debut collection Hitting Trees with Sticks reviewed in the TLS.
More about the collection here>>

20 March 2013: Hassan Blasim's story 'Don't Kill Me, I Beg You. This is My Tree' specially-commissioned for the Guardian's 'Water Stories' series published today.
Read the story here>>

28 March 2013: Pawel Huelle confirmed for Cork World Book Festival,
Polish author Pawel Huelle will be in conversation with Billy O'Callaghan and translator Antonia Lloyd-Jones at the Cork World Book Festival this April, to celebrate the publication of his collection Cold Sea Stories which was recently long-listed for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.
More information and tickets here>>

24 March 2013: 'Certainly, Blasim can write a story. But he may also have a flock of sparrows inside him, each struggling in its own direction, needing to tell its individual tale, to peck its way out into the light.'
Egypt Independent on The Iraqi Christ.
Read the full review here>>
More about the collection here>>

19 March 2013: Hassan Blasim interviewed in New Internationalist
'Please help us and ask your government to leave us alone to our freedom and our democracy. We must build the country. Through history we’ve always had these people – all the time we want to change our culture and make a revolution from inside, and all the time there’s a problem because we are not alone. We fight not just the dictator or some radical Muslim. The West is playing with our country.'
Read the full interview here
More about the collection here>>

4 March 2013: Hassan Blasim interviewed in The National
'You can't talk about violence, war and the last 40 years of Iraqi history in one short story collection. We are all familiar with the news stories about bombs in Iraq killing 50 people. But I found myself wanting to understand the people behind these numbers.'
Read the full interview here More about the collection here>>

2 March 2013: Pawel Huelle's Cold Sea Stories, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, long-listed for the 2013 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.
'Every year, the balance of the books that reach this antepenultimate round shifts. This time, central and eastern Europe shines...'
- Boyd Tonkin, Literary Editor of The Independent and one of the judges of the IFFP.
More about the book here

Independent Article. The Long-List

26 Feb 2013: Comma author Sarah Hilary makes two-book deal with Headline Publishing Group
Headline Publishing Group announced today that it has bought two novels from crime writer Sarah Hilary. The first novel Someone Else's Skin is the start of a brand new crime series featuring D.I. Marnie Rome. Vicki Mellor, Deputy Publishing Director for Fiction, said ‘I have been looking for some time for an author who we can launch onto the UK crime scene with fanfare and we have definitely found that in Sarah.' Headline will publish Someone Else's Skin in early 2014 and follow with Hilary’s second novel a year later. Translation rights have been sold in Germany, France, Holland and Italy to date.
Check out Sarah's contribution to Comma's Crime Writers' Association Anthology M.O here
Visit Sarah's blog here

25 Feb 2013: Toby Litt makes the short-list for the 2013 Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award!
Toby Litt's ST EFG long-listed story 'Call it ''The Bug'' Because I Have No Time to Think of a Better Title', specially commissioned for Comma's Bio-Punk anthology, has been selected for the short-list. The other five short-listed authors include Sarah Hall, Ali Smith, Cynan Jones, Mark Haddon and Junot Diaz.
More info on the short-list here and here
More info on Bio-Punk here
Well done Toby!

15 Feb 2013: Hassan Blasim interviewed in New Statesman
'We need to express the disaster of our lives.' Read the full interview here

20 Jan 2013: Toby Litt long-listed for the 2013 Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award
Toby Litt's story 'Call it ''The Bug'' Because I Have no Time to Think of a Better Title', specially commissioned for Comma's Bio-Punk anthology, has been long-listed for the 2013 Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award. Other long-listed authors include Sarah Hall, Ali Smith and Mark Haddon. More about the long-list here
More information about Bio-Punk here

16 Jan 2013: Tea at the Midland on BBC Radio 4Extra EVERY DAY THIS WEEK!
Stories from David Constantine's latest collection Tea at the Midland are to be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra in a series of readings at 11am & again at 9pm, EVERY DAY THIS WEEK.
Listen again to:
'Goat' read by Paul Hilton (Mon 14th Jan) here.
'The House by the Weir and the Way' Part 1 read by Sara Kestelman (Tue 15th Jan) here.
'The House by the Weir and the Way' Part 2 read by Sara Kestelman (Wed 16th Jan) here.
'Mr Carlton' read by Robert Blythe (Thurs 17th Jan) here.
'Tea at the Midland' read by Sian Thomas (Fri 18th Jan) here.
More information about the broadcasts here and the book here.

14 Jan 2013: Michelle Green on R3's The Verb
Listen again to Michelle Green on Radio 3's The Verb (last Friday), here. Scroll to 33mins 40 secs in.

30 Oct: Turing Text Postponed
Due to delays in the programming of the 'Turing Text' game (an interactive creative writing social media game), this Friday's event 'Turing Texts' at the Manchester Museum has had to be postponed until the new year. (New dates tbc). Organisers Comma Press sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused. For more information on the project go to: www.turingtext.com

15 Oct: Comma hailed as one of the "Six Best Publishers Outside London" by The New Statesman

2 Oct: Miroslav Penkov wins the BBC 2012 International Short Story Award for 'East of the West'
More info. >> The BBC International Short Story Award 2012 anthology

23 June: The Independent on Shi Cheng
'These stories tell us how the lives of these cities and citizens, or peasants-turned-citizens, are being tempered. The stories seem to say that one has to go through the fires of hell to reach some different stage of existence...'
Read the full review here>>
More about Shi Cheng.

22 May: Lemistry on SF Translation Prize shortlist
Danusia Stok's translation of Wojciech Orlinski's story 'Stanlemian' from Comma's Lemistry anthology has just been short-listed for the 2012 Science Fiction and Fantasy Translation Awards.
View the short-list here>>. More about Lemistry here>>

17 May: Comma sells US rights to Hassan Blasim collection to Penguin USA!
Congrats to Hassan! More>>

17 May: Manchester Book Market returns!! Fri 8th & Sat 9th May. More>>

9 May: Zoe Lambert's The War Tour shortlisted for the Edge Hill Prize
Congratulations to Comma author, Zoe Lambert whose debut collection, The War Tour, has just been shortlisted for the UK's only prize for a short story collection. Congratulations also to Sarah Hall, whose The Beautiful Indifference also made the shortlist.
More about the shortlist here.
More about The War Tour.

2 May: Comma launches new European Short Story Website
As part of the newly formed European Short Story Network, Comma is proud to announce the launch of www.theshortstory.eu - a new website showcasing the continent's best young short story writers... in translation.

24 Apr: Award Winning and Banned
Hassan Blasim's forthcoming second collection, The Iraqi Christ, has just been awarded one of English Pen's four Writers in Translation Awards for 2012. Almost simultaneously, news has reached Comma that the Arabic edition of Hassan's first book, The Madman of Freedom Square (which took three years to find an Arabic publisher after the English edition came out, and only then appeared in a heavily censored state) has just been officially banned in Jordan. More comment here and here. Censorship, as always, is alive and well.

20 Apr: : Comma launches new Chinese short story showcase
To coincide with the China Market Focus at this year's London Book Fair, Comma Press is launching a specially commissioned anthology of previously untranslated city-based short stories, Shi Cheng: Short Stories from Urban China. Working with the Confucius Institute at the University of Manchester, the British Council and the British Library, Comma will be holding two launches next week; the first at the British Library (on the last day of the Book Fair, Wed 18), and then at the International Anthony Burgess Centre in Manchester (Thu 19).

More about the book here.

21 Mar: Zoe Lambert's The War Tour has been officially long-listed for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. More here. It's also longlisted for this year's Edge Hill Prize for the Short Story. More here.

3 Mar: The Guardian on Zoe Lambert
'Lambert's collection presents a carefully balanced picture of the world's combat zones... The writing is disarming... and to-the-point... a kind of narrative ambush. I'd recommend that you read these.' - The Guardian on Zoe Lambert's The War Tour.

20 Feb: 'The Heart of Denis Noble' makes Sunday Times EFG Prize Long-List
Alison MacLeod's semi-fictional short story, originally commissioned for Comma's Litmus project, has once again been recognised by a major award for the short story - the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award. This story was also shortlisted for the other major single-story prize, the BBC NSSA late last year. More about the Sunday Times longlist here.

20 Jan: Interzone on Lemistry
"An unashamedly intelligent, relentlessly experimental and challenging anthology. Its combination of provocation, entertainment and migraine-inducing paradoxes would be perfectly at home with Lem's finest writing. Highly recommended." More about the book here.

11 Jan: The Independent's Wednesday Book: Emil Hakl's 'On Flying Objects'
'Co-translators Petr Kopet and Karen Reppin capture the tarnished tenderness of these superfluous men as, inevitable as winter twilights or morning hangovers, "Sadness arrived, the king of all emotions".'
Read full review. More about the book here.

31 Dec: Best of the Year
Mirja Unge's It Was Just, Yesterday makes The Guardian's 'Best Short Stories of 2011' list.
Litmus makes The Observer's Best Books of 2011 list.

22 Dec 2011: Happy National Short Story Day!
The shortest day of the year is also National Short Story Day - so check out the new website offering countless new recommendations for new stories to read, with links to audio, video and open-source text versions. Hours of rewarding reading, listening and watching guaranteed!
Also follow the day on twitter: @shortstoryday

12 Dec: Next of Kindle: Comma launches eight new titles on Kindle:
Full list of titles available on Kindle here

23 NOV: Google Doodle celebrates 60th anniversary of Lem's The Cyberiad.
More about Comma's celebration of Lem here>>

28 OCT: Comma launches The European Short Story Network
In partnership with four literature festivals across Europe - MLF, Chapter & Verse, Kikinda Short (Serbia) and Wroclaw Short Story Festival (Poland), Comma is delighted to annouce the launch of the European Short Story Network, a series of exchanges events and a new website shopwcasing some of the best, unpublished short story writers from across Europe. Supported by the European Cultural Foundation.
Find out more about at www.theshortstory.eu.

14 OCT 11: Comma Authors on Woman's Hour
Listen again to Comma authors Zoe Lambert and Michelle Green talking about their forthcoming short story collections. Zoe's The War Tour is out next month, whilst Michelle is currently working on a collection of stories based on her experiences of the 2004 civil war in Darfur.
Listen again on iPLayer.
More about Zoe Lambert's collection here.

26 SEP 11:
D W Wilson wins the BBC National Short Story Award 2011
Once again Comma is extremely proud to be publishing the prize anthology, featuring all five shortlisted stories. We're also delighted to report that for the third year in a row, the shortlist includes a Comma-published, Comma-commissioned short story - Alison MacLeod's story 'The Heart of Denis Noble' was specially commissioned for Comma's Litmus project.
>> More about the anthology and shortlist.
Available also for the Kindle.

>>More news.

10 SEP 11:
NEWS: Comma Authors Make it Three in a Row!
The 2011 BBC National Short Story Award shortlist was announced last night on Radio Four’s Front Row and, for the third year running, a Comma author has made the shortlist.
Alison MacLeod was named on the five-strong list for her story ‘The Heart of Denis Noble’, which was specially commissioned earlier this year as part of Comma’s Litmus project – exploring breakthrough moments in modern science, with semi-fictional short stories.
Two years ago, Sara Maitland was shortlisted and awarded Runner Up for her story ‘Moss Witch’ commissioned for Comma’s previous science-into-fiction project, When It Changed. She was joined on the shortlist that year by fellow Comma author, Jane Rogers. And Last year, the overall prize was given to Comma stalwart David Constantine for his story, ‘Tea At The Midland’.
Comma is also delighted to be publishing the prize anthology, on sale now (also available as a Kindle from amazon).
For more about the shortlist click here.
For more about Comma click here.

9 SEP 11:
NEWS: BBC National Short Story Award Shortlist Announced!
The shortlist for the sixth, annual BBC National Short Story Award was announced on Front Row on Friday. And once again Comma is extremely proud to be publishing the prize anthology, featuring all five shortlisted stories. We're also delighted to report that for the third year in a row, the shortlist includes a Comma-published, Comma-commissioned short story - the honour this year going to Alison MacLeod, who's story 'The Heart of Denis Noble' was specially commissioned for Comma's Litmus project.
More here.

1 SEP 11:
NEWS: Turner Prize shortlisted artist Mike Nelson to feature in new Stanislaw Lem book
Mike Nelson (twice shorlisted for the Turner prize and British representative at this year's Venice Biennale) joins a host of literary and science fiction writers (including Brian Aldiss, Toby Litt, Jacek Dukaj, Frank Cottrell Boyce and many others) as well as scientists (Prof. Hod Lipson & Steve Furber) to celebrate one of the greatest ever sci-fi writers. More info here.
More news>>

15 AUG 11:
NEWS: Jane Rogers longlisted for the 2011 Man Booker Prize
Congratulations to Comma regular Jane Rogers, who has just been named on the 2011 Man Booker Prize longlist for her new novel The Testament of Jessie Lamb, published by Scotland's Sandstone Press. More about the longlist here.
More news>>

NEWS: Litmus on Radio Four's Front Row.
Listen to author Sarah Hall and editor Ra Page discuss the science-into-fiction project on iPLayer
NEWS: Comma's Gyrðir Elíasson wins 2011 Nordic Council Literature Prize
The author of Stone Tree, translated for Comma by Victoria Cribb, has just been named as the 2011 winner of this major prize for his new short story collection, Milli trjánna (Among the Trees). More about the prize here and here.

NEWS: Comma Press awarded new National Portfolio Status in Arts Council Funding Review
30 Mar: Comma is delighted to announce it has been successful in its application to become a new National Portfolio client, covering three years of funding from 2012-2015 (pending funding agreement), as part of a consortium bid with Literature Northwest and Manchester Digital Laboratory (MadLab). This will include the provision of a new Writers Centre for Manchester, extensive development support for authors and small presses, both regionally and nationally, and digital development of Comma's literary and AV content, as well as an exciting and intensive three year publishing programme.

NEWS: Adam Marek WINS the 2011 Arts Foundation fellowship for the Short Story!
28 Jan: Comma author Adam Marek was last night awarded the prestigious 2011 Art Foundation fellowship at a glittering ceremony hosted by the fabulous Grayson Perry. The previous winners of the short story fellowship were Ali Smith and Michel Faber. More here.
More info on Adam's first collection Instruction Manual for Swallowing here.

NEWS: David Constantine scoops BBC National Short Story Award for 'Tea at the Midland'
30 Nov: Salford-born, Comma-published David Constantine was last night announced the winner of the £15,000 award, presented live on Radio Four's Front Row. More about the award here. Order the Award anthology below. Order David's most recent collection, The Shieling here. More about David and to watch a video-reading of his story 'The Shieling' click here

Brace Author Shortlisted for Wasafari New Writing Prize!
14 Sep 2010: Congrats to Jaki McCarrick who has just been shortlisted for the 2010 Wasafiri New Writing Prize for fiction.
More information about the shortlist here.

David Constantine shortlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award!
10 July 2010: Manchester-born Constantine has beaten longlisted authors Louis de Bernières, Patrick Gale and Helen Simpson to be the only Brit (and only non-American!) on a shortlist of six, for what remains the the world’s richest prize for the form (€35,000). Other shortlistees include TC Boyle and Ron Rash.
More about the award and shortlist here.
More about the collection in question, The Shieling, here.
Read yesterday's Guardian article about the dominance of American writing on the shortlist here.

Comma Film at Cannes Film Festival.
12 May 2010: Comma is delighted to announce the screening of MOSS WITCH at the Cannes Film Festival next week.
Directed by Lisa Risbec and based on a short story by Sara Maitland, the film tells of a collision between two world views - those of a research scientist and a mythical character. Originally commissioned by the Huddersfield Literature Festival, the film is part of Comma's on-going short story and poem adaptation project, which has already seen films premiere at Berlin and Edinburgh Film Festivals, win awards at the London Short Film Festival and Leeds International Film Festival, and get onto the Virgin Media Prize shortlist. The original story was commissioned as part of Comma's When It Changed, edited by Geoff Ryman - a series of collaborations between writers and research scientists based at North West Universities. More information about the Cannes screening here.

For those of you unable to jet over to Cannes, Comma are putting on a special Manchester screening later this month at An Outlet (77 Dale Street), Friday 28 May, 8pm. Free and all welcome but please RSVP to ra.page[at]commapress.co.uk if you would like to reserve a ticket.

Hassan Blasim's The Madman of Freedom Square long-listed for Independent Foreign Fiction Prize!
12 Mar 10: The first collection from Comma's new Middle East series has reached the last 15 for the £10,000 Independent prize, in an historic year for Arabic fiction. Blasim's collection is an extraordinary blend of surreal horror and personal trauma, drawing on his own experiences as a refugee of the Iraq War. Madman represents the first major piece of fiction about the war, from an Iraqi pen to be published in English, made even more remarkable for the fact that it has yet to be published in Arabic or in Hassan's adopted country of Finland.
More about the longlist here. More about Madman here.

Adam Marek makes Sunday Times EFG Shortlist
7 Mar 10: Congratulations to Comma author Adam Marek who has reached the shortlist of the inaugural Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Prize, alongside seasoned Kiwi C K Stead, Zimbabwean Petina Gappah, American David Vann, 26-year old novelist Joe Dunthorne, and former journalist Will Cohu. Adam's story 'Fewer Things' was one of 1200 entries and beat longlisted stories from the likes of Rose Tremain and Helen Simpson to make the shortlist. The prize of £25,000 is the largest cash prize for a single story in English.
More about the shortlist here; more about Adam Marek here.

When It Changed story takes 2nd Prize in the BBC National Short Story Award

5 Dec 09: The five-strong, all-women shortlist included two Comma authors this year - Jane Rogers and Sara Maitland. Sara's story, 'Moss Witch', commissioned for our new anthology When It Changed, took the Runner Up prize this week, the winner being Kate Clanchy's phenomenal 'The Not-Dead and the Saved'. Presenting the award live on Front Row, Monday 7th December, chair of the judges Tom Sutcliffe described 'Moss Witch' as 'at times as simple as a child's fairytale, at other times as densely informative as a PhD thesis - you wouldn't think that combination would work at all, but it does wonderfully.' More info about the shortlist here.
Listen to Sara talk about her story on Front Row here. (Scroll to 16mins in).
Listen to Hannah Gordon read the story on Radio Four (2 Dec 09) here.

Comma Films win film festival awards and selected for key competitions.

15 Nov 09: Congratulations to Andrew Haigh, whose film Five Miles Out has just won the Yorkshire Film Prize at the Leeds International Film Festival. Congrats also to Terry Wragg who's film Working Metal based on the poem by Kath McKay, won the Chapel Allerton Short Film Festival prize 2009.
Congrats also so Kate Jessop and Ronald J. Wright for their selections in key UK and international film festivals. Kate's The Loss, based on a short story by David Constantine, has been selected for Raindance and the Branchage Jersey International Film Festival. Ron's The Dogs, based on a short story by Hanif Kureishi, was selected for the Portobello Film Festival and the Leeds International Film Festival.
See below for info on Andrew Haigh's Five Miles Out.

Comma Press Anthology Wins International Prize for Suspense and Horror!!!

13 July 09: The New Uncanny has been awarded the 2008 Shirley Jackson Award for Best Anthology
On Sunday 13th July 2009, the winners of the Shirley Jackson Awards were announced at Readercon in Burlington, Massachusetts. The awards are given each year for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic, in recognition of one of America's greatest writers and the author of the classic short story 'The Lottery'.
The New Uncanny, edited by independent publishers Ra Page and Sarah Eyre of Comma Press, explored and updated Freud's famous theory of the uncanny – 'das unheimliche' – which laid out a psychoanalytic framework for understanding horror writing. The anthology featured specially commissioned stories from the likes of AS Byatt, Hanif Kureishi, Christopher Priest, Matthew Holness, and Frank Cottrell Boyce, among others. The New Uncanny was nominated alongside authors such as Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates and Etgar Keret (in other categories).
For Manchester-based Comma Press, this award comes hard on the heels of winning the World Fantasy Award 2008 for Best Collection for Tiny Deaths, by Robert Shearman. A not inconsiderable feat given that these are Comma's first two publications in the realm of fantasy.
More about the winners>>
More about The New Uncanny>>

Comma Film launch 2009 Version Short Film Commission

29 Apr 09: As part of the inaugural edition of the Version Film Festival, Sponsored by Lion Eyes Television, Comma Film is commissioning three short films to premiere at Cornerhouse this November. The films will be adaptations of three of Comma's previously commissioned short stories. Filmmakers from across the UK are invited to select a short story from the publisher's backlist (over 300 published stories), and submit a short application with a showreel. This must consist of a short, 1-page outline or treatment on how they would interpret the film (stylistic interpretation, what they would bring out/add/cut), plus a one page outline of how the film would be produced within budget. A budget of £1000 will be made available to up to three directors, and filmmakers must be prepared to work with an outside producer, and if necessary a DOP and other crew members sourced externally.
To access a list of synopses and information about the stories available, click here. Once you have chosen three texts you'd like to read more of, email the coordinator at Ra.Page{at}commapress.co.uk for the full texts. Alternatively, for more general browsing go to the books page of the Comma website, and follow the links through. Some sample stories are available as readings on the StoryBank page, or the books can be ordered directly, by paypal, at a discount. There are no fees for entering the competition.
Filmmakers need to be available across the summer for the productions and the organisers reserve the right to commission less than three films if the quality of the submissions is insufficient.
Production and direction outlines should be emailed to the above address by 5pm on Fri 29 May.
Showreels can be sent as links to websites, youtube profiles, or hardcopies.
For full terms and conditions click here >>.
Version Film Festival is sponsored by

Festival & Commission Partner:

With support from The Granada Foundation.

Comma Film Premieres at Edinburgh Film Festival

10 Apr 09: Comma Film's first short story adaptation enjoys its UK premiere this summer at the Edinburgh Film Festival. Having shown at the Berlinale in February, 'Five Miles Out' will go on to screen at the following festivals over the next few months: Nashville Film Festival, Atlanta Film Festival, Viewfinders, Nova Scotia, Canada, Maryland Film Festival, Edinburgh and then Mediawave, Hungary.
Featuring Dakota Blue Richards (star of The Golden Compass and The Secret of Moonacre), Five Miles Out is based on a Sarah Tierney story first published by Comma Press in Bracket (2003). The adaptation is directed by Andrew Haigh (who's previously worked with Ridley Scott on Gladiator and Heaven's Gate) and is sponsored by Film 4 and the UK Film Council.

Comma authors unite to condemn Israel's attack on the Gaza strip.
Alexei Sayle joins celebrities to call on US President-elect Barack Obama to speak up against the attacks. More...
Sean O'Brien publishes new poem in The Guardian lamenting the options seemingly left for the Palestinian people. More...

Madinah story in December issue of Prospect Magazine
Nov 20th: Those readers who attended Comma's October Middle East events and were disappointed to not hear Hassan Blasim's story have a chance to read it in the December 'Obama' issue of Prospect magazine.

NEWS: Tiny Deaths wins 2008 World Fantasy Award!!

Nov 2nd: Congratulationss to Rob Shearman, whose debut collection, Tiny Deaths has been declared the winner of the World Fantasy Award for Best Collection. The winners were announced at the World Fantasy Convention in Calgary on Sunday evening.
Read news coverage on citylife.co.uk.
Read more about the award....

'Desires' shortlisted for Virgin Media Prize
Aug 1st: Congratulations to Kate Jessop, whose first ever Comma film 'Desires', based on a poem by Gaia Holmes, has been shortlisted for the prestigious Virgin Media Shorts Prize, from over 1400 entrants. The main prize will be judged by a panel including Kevin Spacey and Gurinder Chadha, but there will also be a People's Choice Award. To vote for your favourite film (and be in contention to win a video camera yourself), click here.
You need to register to vote, and you only get one vote.
Earlier this year 'Desires' was selected for simultaneously screenings in Los Angeles, New York and various venues across Canada, Australia and New Zealand as part of International Women's Week!

Congrats also to Kate for picking up the Femme de Fantastique award at January's London Short Film Festival, for her new film 'When the Telescope Came'.

Congrats also to Andrew Haigh who has been selected as one of the Cinema Extreme finalists adapt the Comma short story Five Miles Out. He has received production funding of around £50K from the UK Film Council in conjunction with Film Four to produce an adaptation of Sarah Tierney's story from Comma's Bracket anthology. Read more about Andrew in Screen Daily.

Phobic shortlisted for British Fantasy Society Awards
June 16th: Congrats to Ramsey Campbell, Conrad Williams, and Nicholas Royle, whose stories in Phobic have been nominated for the British Fantasy Society Award for Best Short Story. Congrats also to editor, Andy Murray, as Phobic itself has been nominated in the Best Anthology category.
More information and a chance to vote for the winner here.
Voting closes 1st August.

Tiny Deaths shortlisted for Edge Hill Prize
May 10th: Congrats to Rob Shearman whose debut collection has been shortlisted for the prestigious Edge Hill Prize for the best collection by a single author from Britain or Ireland.
Read more about the shortlist.
Read more about the book.

Marek and Shearman longlisted for Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award
May 3rd: Congrats to Rob Shearman and Adam Marek who have just been selected for the longlist of the Frank O'Connor Short Story Prize 2008.

COMMA ON THE RADIO:

Listen to AS Byatt reading from The New Uncanny on BBC Radio's The Strand, broadcast Thu 30 Oct 08.

Listen to Ed Barton, on on Radio 3's The Verb, broadcast Fri 28 March.

View Comma's previous news items, 2003 to present: NEWS ARCHIVE

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