From Booklist
This is the third collection of the best short fiction submitted as entries for Britain's Ashram Awards. Launched in 1996, the awards are Britain's only prize for short fiction written by women, and this collection features the top 12 entries as well as specially commissioned stories by Louise Doughty, Patricia Duncker, and Carol Shields, among others. First-prize winner Frances Childs' "Prospect House" homes in on wild Kim and her stint at a home for single teens. Cynical and bitingly funny, but not without prospects herself, she lands a part in a local play while her roommates end up pregnant and on the dole. In Tania Casselle's "Pat-a-Cake, Pat-a-Cake," Robyn finds herself shocked into losing weight by the behavior of a lover but then mourns her past self, yearning for the time when "my flesh surged and swelled like the sea." Often startling and written with high energy, these stories run the gamut of emotions, addressing pain and loss as well as rare moments of true connection. This is edgy fiction from both established and new writers. Joanne Wilkinson
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Book Description
The 2001 Asham Literary Trust competiton attracted more than nine hundred entries of which the judges selected 12, which are published here together with commissioned stories by Louise Doughty, Patricia Duncker, A.L. Kennedy, Elena Lappin, Kate Pullinger, and Carol Shields.The result is a collection of stories from Zimbabwe to San Francisco via Brighton and Jamaica that proves that the short story is alive and kicking.

FROM THE PUBLISHER