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Interview with the 2026 Devon Prize winner: Paul Batterham

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  Paul Batterham is a writer based in Exeter, where his short fiction draws on Dartmoor folklore, local history and the uncanny edges of modern life. He also makes the Exeter Stories podcast, documenting the city's community & cultural life, and lives there with his husband, Mark. What did you start with to create your story - the character, the concept or something else? The feeling of the place. We’d recently returned from a trip to Thailand, and had stayed at a lotus farm with a family. I wanted to evoke how it felt to be in that specific place, surrounded by ruined temples and traditional stilted Thai houses. The characters and concept flowed from that. How long have you been writing and have you had anything published before? I’ve been writing as a hobby for 15 years or so, really as a creative foil to my day job. I’ve not had anything published, as I’ve not pursued it to any great degree. Like a lot of folk, I have loads of ideas, and loads of half-finished stories of var...
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Interview with the 2026 Third Prize winner: Chris Durston

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  Chris Durston has always thought that writing is just about the only thing he really wants to do, but only recently got around to doing anything about it. He's lived in Exeter all his life and spends as much time as possible by the coasts and rivers with his young family. What did you start with to create your story - the character, the concept or something else? I was feeling very, very grumpy indeed. I thought I was reasonably technology-forward until generative AI came along, and now I seem to spend a lot of time and energy being terribly irritated and despairing about the whole thing. There are plenty of things I don't like about it, but the image of AI as this incessantly eating, incessantly shitting hamster got into my brain for some reason, and the story just kind of spilled out in one big gloopy malaise. How long have you been writing and have you had anything published before? I wrote all the time when I was a kid, but fell off a bit when I had to do more reading, wr...
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Interview with the 2026 Second Prize winner: Susan Swan

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  Susan Swan grew up in Scotland and taught English in London schools before moving to live beside the sea in South Devon where she teaches, writes, swims and enjoys coastal walks. She has been writing short fiction and novels for twenty years and has had some success with short stories.  What did you start with to create your story - the character, the concept or something else? The idea for The Ingredients of Home stemmed from a visit to a self-storage facility. My daughter had stored the furniture and belongings from the flat she’d shared with her former partner. Unlike the protagonist in the story, she’d found a room to rent but there was no space for her stuff. Occasionally, she’d ask me to visit her metal container to retrieve an item and I was struck by how it was laid out as a room. The manager showed me inside a huge warehouse of wooden compartments that had been filled and forgotten decades ago. As he told me stories of divorces and deaths, I conceived of the idea of...
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Interview with the 2026 First Prize winner: John Barrett Lee

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  John Barrett Lee is a Welsh writer, teacher and dad.  His fiction has appeared with Fairlight Books, Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place and Nature, and elsewhere.  He won the Ironclad Creative Short Story Competition and has been recognised by prizes including the Historical Writers' Association Dorothy Dunnett Award.  Find him on Instagram and X @johnbarrettlee What did you start with to create your story - the character, the concept or something else?
 I can't remember exactly, but in my childhood, grandmas always seemed to have pianos and knew how to play them. I also love Pixar's Coco and cried at the scene where Miguel plays the secret song to his great-grandmother. My grandad used to say that all the men in our family have small hands and cry too easily, and he was right. Alfie is my Welsh Miguel. How long have you been writing and have you had anything published before? I studied Creative Writing at university, but then life got in the way and I didn't w...
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Read the 2026 Devon Prize Winner: The Snail and the Stork by Paul Batterham

 The Snail and the Stork by Paul Batterham This story, like all the best stories, begins with a death.   Pu had been planting new season rice in the fields far beyond the temple ruins, where the openbill storks pick out fat, juicy apple snails. His body was found face down in the shallow water, his tattered cane hat floating like a lotus next to him. Paw said Pu’s heart had failed. Ya said that which had never existed cannot fail. Nobody mourned Pu. There was no decoration of his casket, and the bier it sat on remained unadorned. There had been little chanting, and nobody had attached ribbons for Pu to receive his merit. After three days, Paw burned the body. “I’m free now,” Ya whispered, and she took my hands in hers. She was crying, and smiling. Her hands were knotted and twisted like tree roots and her cheeks shone like apples in the firelight. Ya said Pu was phi phong now, and giggled and cried.   I stood and watched as the casket slowly disintegrated. Pu’s hand fell ...
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