Nicholas Royle has published four collections of short fiction: Mortality (Serpent's Tail), Ornithology (Confingo Publishing), The Dummy & Other Uncanny Stories (Swan River Press) and London Gothic (Confingo Publishing). He is also the author of seven novels, most recently First Novel (Vintage), and a collaboration with artist David Gledhill, In Camera (Negative Press London). He has edited more than two dozen anthologies, including eleven earlier volumes of Best British Short Stories. He runs Nightjar Press, which publishes original short stories as signed, limited-edition chapbooks. His most recent book is White Spines: Confessions of a Book Collector (Salt Publishing) and forthcoming is another short story collection, Manchester Uncanny (Confingo Publishing).

Jenn Ashworth's first novel, A Kind of Intimacy, won a Betty Trask Award in 2010. On the publication of her second, Cold Light, she was listed by the BBC's The Culture Show as one of the UK's twelve best new writers. Her third novel, The Friday Gospels, is currently being adapted for television. She teaches creative writing at Lancaster University and is one of the co-founders of Curious Tales, a writer-led performance and publishing collective.

Neil Campbell is a short story writer, novelist and poet. From Manchester, England, he has appeared three times in the annual anthology of Best British Short Stories (2012/2015/2016). He has published four collections of short fiction, two novels, two poetry chapbooks and one poetry collection, as well as appearing in numerous magazines and anthologies.

Emma Cleary is from Liverpool and taught English and Creative Writing at Staffordshire University. In her critical work, she writes about maps, jazz, and the city in diasporic literature. She lives in Vancouver, BC, where she is working on her first novel.

Uschi Gatward was born in Mile End, London. Her debut collection, English Magic, is published by Galley Beggar Press. Her stories have appeared in the anthologies Best British Short Stories 2015 and 2021 (Salt) and Resist: Stories of Uprising (Comma Press). They have been published widely in magazines including Dublin Review, Wasafiri and White Review. She died in 2021.

Jonathan Gibbs was born in 1972 and lives in London. His debut novel, Randall, is published by Galley Beggar Press, and was longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize 2015. His short fiction has appeared in Lighthouse, The South Circular, Allnighter (Pulp Faction), Gorse and The Best British Short Stories 2014, and has been shortlisted for the White Review Short Story Prize. He blogs at tinycamels.wordpress.com.

Jim Hinks is an editor at Comma Press, an independent publisher specialising in short fiction. He is currently reading for a PhD in narrative structure in the short story at Edge Hill University, and writes his own stories in the name of practice-as-research. He is the inventor of MacGuffin, an online jukebox for short stories and poetry in text and audio form.

Tamar Hodes was born in Israel in 1961 and has lived in the UK since she was five. For the past thirty years, she has combined teaching English and creative writing in schools, universities and prisons with her own writing. Her novel, Raffy's Shapes, was published by Accent Press in 2006 and she has had many stories on Radio 4 as well as in anthologies and magazines. In January 2015, she was a finalist in Elle's writing competition. She is married with two grown-up children.

Born in Liverpool to a rambling Irish family, Bee Lewis now lives on the south coast between Brighton and Eastbourne. She has a number of publishing credits including British Short Stories 2015 (Salt), Flash Fiction Magazine, and Rattle Tales. In 2016, Bee was shortlisted for the Brighton Prize, winning the Sussex Prize category, and graduated with an MA in Creative Writing from MMU. Liminal is her debut novel and she is busy working on the next one which is set in Sussex.

Alan McCormick is Writer in Residence at Kingston University's Writing School. His story collection, Dogsbodies and Scumsters, was longlisted for the Edge Hill Prize in 2012. He also writes flash shorts in response to Jonny Voss's pictures. They work together as Scumsters, have been published regularly at 3:AM and keep a blog at scumsters.blogspot.co.uk.

Best British Short Stories invites you to judge a book by its cover - or more accurately, by its title. This new series aims to reprint the best short stories published in the previous calendar year by British writers, whether based in the UK or elsewhere.

• Introduction
• Hilary Mantel - The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher August 6th 1983
• Julianne Pachico - Lucky
• Bee Lewis - The Iron Men
• Jonathan Gibbs - Festschrift
• Jenn Ashworth - Five Thousand Lads a Year
• Neil Campbell - LS Lowry/ Man Lying on a Wall
• Emma Cleary - Lightbox
• Jim Hinks - Green Boots' Cave
• Uschi Gatward - The Clinic
• Tracey S Rosenberg - May the Bell Be Rung For Harriet
• Helen Simpson - Strong Man
• Matthew Sperling - Voice Over
• K J Orr - The Lake Shore Limited
• Tamar Hodes - The First Day
• Alan Mccormick - Go Wild in the Country
• Helen Marshall - Secondhand Magic
• Charles Wilkinson - Fresh Water
• Rebecca Swirsky - The Common People
• Alison Moore - Eastmouth
• Julianne Pachico - The Tourists
• Joanna Walsh - Worlds From the Word's End
• Contributors' Biographies
• Acknowledgements

"Hilary Mantel and Helen Simpson feature in the nation's favourite annual guide to the short story, now in its fifth year ..."

Best British Short Stories invites you to judge a book by its cover - or more accurately, by its title. This new series aims to reprint the best short stories published in the previous calendar year by British writers, whether based in the UK or elsewhere. The editor's brief is wide ranging, covering anthologies, collections, magazines, newspapers and web sites, looking for the best of the bunch to reprint all in one volume.

Authors include Hilary Mantel, Alison Moore, Jenn Ashworth, Helen Simpson, Charles Wilkinson, Rebecca Swirsky, Matthew Sperling, Julianne Pachico, KJ Orr, Bee Lewis, Uschi Gatward, Emma Cleary and Neil Campbell.