# Six Shorts 2017: The finalists for the 2017 Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award

Victor Lodato, Kathleen Alcott, Bret Anthony Johnston, Celeste Ng, Richard Lambert, Sally Rooney

This year's six shortlisted stories for the world's richest short story prize, the £30,000 Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award.The Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award is the world's most prestigious and richest short story prize, worth £30,000 to the winner. Past winners and shortlisted authors have included the Pulitzer winners Junot Díaz, Anthony Doerr and Adam Johnson, plus Hilary Mantel, Ali Smith, Yiyun Li, CK Stead and Elizabeth Strout.Six Shorts 2017 brings together the six stories shortlisted for this year's award: ‘Reputation Management’ by Kathleen Alcott; ‘Half of What Atlee Rouse Knows about Horses’ by Bret Anthony Johnston; ‘The Hazel Twig and the Olive Tree’ by Richard Lambert; ‘The Tenant’ by Victor Lodato; ‘Every Little Thing’ by Celeste Ng; and ‘Mr Salary’ by Sally Rooney.Chosen by a hugely experienced and prestigious judging panel that included Booker-winner Anne Enright, Orange- and Whitbread-winner Rose Tremain, Booker-shortlistee Neel Mukherjee and critic and novelist Mark Lawson, the six stories represent the very best in contemporary English-language short fiction.

## 6 SHORTS 2017. The Finalists For the 2017 Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award. KATHLEEN ALCOTT | BRET ANTHONY JOHNSTON | RICHARD LAMBERT | VICTOR LODATO | CELESTE NG | SALLY ROONEY


Copyright


SIX SHORTS 2017

The finalists for the 2017 Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award

Your chance to read the six shortlisted stories by Kathleen Alcott, Bret Anthony Johnston, Richard Lambert, Victor Lodato, Celeste Ng and Sally Rooney

Collection copyright © Times Newspapers Ltd 2017

All rights reserved, not to be copied or reproduced without permission

Ebook Edition © MARCH 2017 ISBN: 9780008259198

Contents

Introduction

Reputation Management by Kathleen Alcott

Half of What Atlee Rouse Knows About Horses by Bret Anthony Johnston

The Hazel Twig and the Olive Tree by Richard Lambert

The Tenant by Victor Lodato

Every Little Thing by Celeste Ng

Mr Salary by Sally Rooney

The Sponsors


Follow the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award on Twitter @ShortStoryAward #STEFG and at the website www.shortstoryaward.co.uk

Introduction


The Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award is the world’s richest and most prestigious prize for a single short story, with £30,000 going to the winner and £1,000 to each of five other shortlisted authors.

Launched in 2010 by Matthew Evans, the former chairman of EFG Private Bank, and Cathy Galvin of The Sunday Times, the award has quickly grown to be one of the most significant literary awards in the literary calendar, with shortlisted authors including previous winners of the Pulitzer, Orange and Man Booker prizes.

The Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award is open to any fiction writer from anywhere in the world who has been published in the UK or Ireland, and whose submitted story, written in English, is 6,000 words or under. The prize’s seven previous winners – CK Stead from New Zealand (2010), Anthony Doerr from the United States (2011), Kevin Barry from Ireland (2012), Junot Diaz from the United States (2013), Adam Johnson from the United States (2014), Yiyun Li from China/United States (2015), and last year’s winner Jonathan Tel from the United Kingdom – have emphasised the prize’s international reach.

More than 1,000 authors submitted stories for the 2017 Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award. The judging panel – of Booker-winning novelist and short story writer Anne Enright, broadcaster and novelist Mark Lawson, Booker-shortlisted novelist Neel Mukherjee, and the Orange- and Whitbread-winning novelist and short story writer Rose Tremain, plus the Sunday Times literary editor Andrew Holgate – in February produced a longlist of 14, from which this shortlist of six is now drawn.

The judges’ winning story will be announced at a gala dinner at Stationers’ Hall in London on Thursday, April 27.

Before then, though, here is your chance to read all six stories yourself.

We hope you enjoy the stories. For more shortlisted stories from the prize’s previous years, visit www.shortstoryaward.co.uk