Head tilted, raven poses for photos, caws, then flies off.
Peter Marshall was born in London, now living in Dundee, Scotland. He is a repurposed scientist who coordinates the Wyvern Poets. His nature haikus and diverse poems are in various print and online locations.
Shortlisted for Write Ten 2025. Read all the winning and shortlisted stories here: Write 10 – The Published Stories 2025
Pregnant woman in marble. The baby’s kicks are still felt.
Ilias Tsagas is a Greek poet and photographer. His work has appeared in journals, magazines and anthologies internationally. He can be found on Instagram (@ilias.tsagas).
Shortlisted for Write Ten 2025. Read all the winning and shortlisted stories here: Write 10 – The Published Stories 2025
The kite soars,
Kissing a wire;
A family in tatters.
Tom Ledger holds a BA from Keele University and currently lives in Lympstone, Devon. Previously he’s lived in Australia, NZ, Canada and France. He gardens, writes and looks out of the window… a lot.
Shortlisted for Write Ten 2025. Read all the winning and shortlisted stories here: Write 10 – The Published Stories 2025
Train departing. Releasing deep breath. No-one yet knows she’s gone.
Lesley Mason writes directly from the heart hoping to share the beauty and wisdom she stumbles across in living an ordinary life. In 2024 she was shortlisted at the Teignmouth Poetry Festival and won the Oberon Herbet Prize. More recent publications include pieces in the Richmond Arts anthology Changes and the nature anthology Language of the Land.
Shortlisted for Write Ten 2025. Read all the winning and shortlisted stories here: Write 10 – The Published Stories 2025
Women lift water from wells,
heft need like an apology.
Cynthia Kitchen lives in the North-West of England and has worked as a primary school teacher, hoping to fire children with a love of reading and writing poetry. Publications include Ver Poets anthologies, Candlestick Press, Headland Press and Bridport Prize anthology.
Shortlisted for Write Ten 2025. Read all the winning and shortlisted stories here: Write 10 – The Published Stories 2025
Lifting the blind, my fence zigzags uphill like reverse lightning.
Scott Dalgarno counts himself fortunate to have seen his poems in APR, The Yale Review, The Antioch Review, The Bellevue Literary Review, and other journals. Three of his translations of the 8th Century Tang poet, Du Fu, are forthcoming in The Adroit Journal. Two of his poems will be in the Fall issue of The Iowa Review. His volume, Third-Class Relics, was a finalist for the 2024 Sally Albiso Prize and has just been published by MoonPath Press. He lives and writes under firs and dogwoods in Lake Oswego, Oregon where he works for issues of justice. Find out more here.
Winner of Write Ten 2025. Read all the winning and shortlisted stories here: Write 10 – The Published Stories 2025
Words as action. Action through words. Mixing words with action.
Our fourth annual competition for the briefest stories was as exciting as ever. We received stories about film scenes, birdwatching, biographies and flying saucers. Stories set off, stopped, re-started. Action was a verb, a noun, a misnomer.
A massive thank you to everyone who submitted ten words. We felt lucky to gorge on each tiny slice of innovative storytelling. All entries were read anonymously.
Our winning stories used every word to make us think and feel. Without space to develop ideas in detail, micro stories exist in the ephemeral world of hinting and suggesting. Our winners responded to the theme, ran with it, swallowed it up and spat it out.
We would love to hear what you think! And let us know if you have an idea for a future theme.
Scott Dalgarno, ‘Thundersnow at Midnight’
Cynthia Kitchen, ‘Far Country’
Lesley Mason, ‘Reclamation of Self’
Tom Ledger, Untitled
Ilias Tsagas, ‘Sculpture, 3200 to 1600 BC’
Peter Marshall, ‘Flighty’
Andreea Finichiu, ‘The Slip’
Olek B, ‘Time Loop’
Briefly Write is a creative space for short poetry and fiction co-edited by sister-and-brother team Elinor Bell-Clark and Daniel Clark. Founded in 2020, we are a community-driven, not-for-profit initiative built on the principles of concision, clarity and compassion.
We publish a twice-yearly journal of quality writing and photography (Briefly Zine). We run an annual free-to-enter Poetry Prize, which attracts thousands of entries from around the world. We are active members of the literary community, obsessive readers and supportive editors.
Briefly Write is fully funded by donations on Ko-fi.
This year, we will pay more writers than ever before. Everything we receive goes to website costs and paying writers. Find out more here: Support Briefly Write
Submissions for Issue 14 of Briefly Zine are open now. Find out more: Submit to Briefly Zine
The Briefly Write Poetry Prize is back… and bigger than ever before!
An annual poetry competition that celebrates and rewards bold, succinct writing, the Briefly Write Poetry Prize 2025 is the fifth instalment of this popular free-to-enter writing competition.
See the competition guidelines and enter here.
We are looking for well-crafted poems up to 10 lines, with innovative language, strong imagery and a subtle, focused composition.
This year, the minimum prize fund in the Briefly Write Poetry Prize is £80, divided as follows:
FIRST = £40 / SECOND = £25 / THIRD = £15. All shortlisted poets will also be paid.
We are committed to accessibility and, as such, entry is free for everyone. If you can, we would appreciate any support to help us meet the costs and boost the prize fund.
Clodagh O Connor, ‘1847’
Kate Twitchin (here)
Rebecca Kinnarney (here)
Christine C. Rivero-Guisinga, ‘Everywhere, the Body’
Mesrure Onal, ‘small mercies’
Aimee R. Cervenka, ‘Thinking of Basements’
Khushi Bajaj, ‘Oranges’
Alice Willington, ‘All the time’
Cathy Ulrich, ‘Where They Found You’
Frank William Finney, ‘Elegy for an Elm’
Emily Munro, ‘suitcase dream’
Aimee R. Cervenka, ‘Thinking of Basements’
Jennie E. Owen, ‘Haircut’
Praveena Pulendran, ‘Bloodset’
Tom Frazer, ‘Green’
Elancharan Gunasekaran, ‘ghost coast’
Namratha Varadharajan, ‘A measure of the past from the future’
Fadilah Ali, ‘time and time and time again’
Kristina T. Saccone, ‘Beyond Unbinds the Dragonfly’
Sara Siddiqui Chansarkar, ‘Colored Feathers’
Jayant Kashyap, ‘The Three of Us’
Hibah Shabkhez, ‘Just Saying’
Richard LeDue, ‘Injuries’
Zahirra Dayal, ‘Untameable’
Sean Cunningham, ‘What Went Wrong’
Being a translation of an Old English (Anglo-Saxon) riddle. The tenth-century Exeter Book manuscript in which this metrical riddle is preserved does not record a solution. The solution generally accepted among modern scholars may be found below.
Four strange companions I beheld. Their track
was sable, and their footsteps wondrous black.
Swift was their pace; yet swifter still it grew
as, visiting the realm of birds, they flew
through open air to plunge beneath the wave.
With unremitting industry then strave
the diligent retainer who once more
began to steer the passage of those four
collateral travellers as they made their way
among the treasures that before them lay.
[Translated from Old English by Thomas Sudell]
A quill pen held between a thumb and two fingers. The black footsteps are the ink that they leave behind. Lines 3-5 refer to the scribe lifting his quill from the page in order to refill it at his ink pot. He then resumes his writing, guiding the quill among the splendours that adorn his illustrated manuscript.
Thomas Sudell is a graduate of Oxford University (2015) where he studied English with a speciality in Old English. His translation of the Old English poem ‘Maxims II’ has recently appeared in Issue 32 of Littoral Magazine (October, 2024).
Briefly Write 