LadyFest: Winning Stories from the Oxford Gender Equality Festival

This DEAD INK anthology celebrates nine winning stories from the 2010 LadyFest Competition judged by Bidisha. Contributors include Angela Jackson, Kathy Keown, Rosalind Newman, Laura O'Brien, Sarvat Hasin, Kate Pocklington, Aimee Cliff, Farah Ghuznavi and Cherish Shirley. Competition judge Bidisha writes of the winning A Touch of Male by Cherish Shirley. "A Touch of Male was written with consummate humour, confidence and mastery. It was a joy to read from start to finish – a perfectly realised world, peopled with believable and utterly enjoyable characters. Cherish has created an entire world inside this one salon, yet her comedy never descends into farce. Completely enthralling stuff." RUNNER UP 1: Getting There by Farah Ghuznavi"I was very impressed by the broad scope and internationalism of this story and would very much like to see it expanded into a novel. Ghuznavi has tackled the consequences of a changing society with great ability, variety and clarity." RUNNER UP 2: Poker Face by Angela Jackson"An incredibly droll, sensitive and intelligence use of point-of-view, tackling a subject which few writers are brave enough to take on (ageing and caring). Not a word out of place. Angela is a true writer and an extremely powerful and promising voice." "I also wanted to commend Sarvat Hasin for her story Savage Lands, for a beautifully structured, international, politicised and witty take on war, emancipation and occupation. Her ability to take on and condense these huge themes was breathtaking – I read her short story almost as a treatment for a larger, more substantial work, with the scenes and characters fleshed out a little."More praise for "Set in beauty parlours, or in Bangladesh, on the west coasts of both the United States and Scotland, these stories are varied, vivid and vital. Some chart the bitter endings of relationships or puzzle at the frailties of old age. Others follow highways, or snatch love away, or tell us about selkies, the seal women, keening on the shore. The language ranges from the mythic to the demotic, from the heightened poetics of 'Dreamcatchers' to the pellucid prose of 'Getting There.' They show us life – complicated, often unexpected but deeply understood."Jon Gower, Hay International Fellow, winner of the Wales Book of the Year for Y Storiwr 2012.