Competitions
Simon’s stories have been short- or long-listed for a number of prestigious literary competitions.
Dirty Chicken and Rice came second in the 2024 Plaza Prizes International Short Story (5,000 words) Competition. ‘Very well executed’ was the verdict of judge Vanessa Onwuemezi, writer & poet. ‘Great job,’ opined Conor Montague, author of the critically acclaimed short story collection, Capital Vices. ‘I must have read that story twenty times and I still find something new whenever I revisit it.’ The story revolves around two flatmates, a struggling actor and an embittered journalist, trying vainly to find solace in cooking their favourite comfort dish.
The Love Cure That Is Hangover Square was longlisted for the Bridport Flash Fiction Prize in 2024. A second-hand copy of Patrick Hamilton’s Hangover Square proves to be a sinister talisman for its low-life owner.
Longlisted for the Cranked Anvil Short Story Competition in January 2024, Goats forms part of Simon’s portmanteau story At the Watts Memorial, EC1 (see London Stories below). A horrific accident on the stage of a Victorian theatre is recalled by a Cockney pantomime artiste. Simon performed this live at Story Radio Podcast’s Writer’s Salon in September 2024.
Outing was another Bridport longlisted story, this time for their 2023 Short Story Prize. On a day trip to Margate, a young student makes a journey of discovery about himself and his parents.
London Stories
Many of Simon’s stories have a London setting or theme.
At the Watts Memorial, EC1 is a portmanteau story inspired by the Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice in Postman’s Park in the City of London, the initiative of eminent painter and sculptor George Frederick Watts.
Bridge Stories is a collection of flash fiction pieces each featuring London bridges – Vauxhall, Putney, Hammersmith and Richmond.
Christmas Stories are three stories of London at Christmas. The Clash prepare to film a video of their iconic song London Calling one rainy December night near Chelsea; a teenager at his wit’s end one Christmas morning has a mysterious encounter near Eel Pie Island, Twickenham; a homeless man in Bishop’s Park, Fulham, prevails upon the charity of a passer-by to help him make a very special seasonal transformation.
Spring Stories are three stories set in and around London locations during spring-time – the Marc Bolan shrine near Barnes Common; the Peace Pagoda in Battersea Park; and the Leg O’Mutton Nature Reserve by the Thames at Barnes.
In Women With Dogs an amiable, elderly man making a literary tour of Highgate is not, perhaps, as harmless as he seems.
Art and Photography
A number of Simon’s stories are inspired by artists, photographers and/or their work.
Seven Self-Portraits follows the career trajectory of the late 19th /early 20th century Finnish artist Helene Schjerfbeck, a fiercely independent yet troubled painter who moves from conventional self-portraiture to semi-abstraction.
Félix Vallotton, the 19th /20th century Swiss-French painter, is the inspiration behind Seven Vallottons – a septet of short pieces that take a selection of Vallotton’s paintings and engravings as their starting point.
In Jean Meade, a driven artist, in working on a portrait of his doctor, reveals rather too much about the competitive nature of the relationship with his wife, also a painter. The story draws on the life of the so-called ‘kitchen sink’ artists John Bratby and his wife Jean Cooke.
The focal point of Annunciation, a story about a controlling, unsympathetic university lecturer, Marian, whose tidy life is upset by the appearance of a figure from her past, is Filippo Lippi’s painting of the same name. Marian’s visit to see the painting in London’s National Gallery proves transformative.
Southam Street & Beyond (after Roger Mayne) is a collection of six flash fiction pieces inspired by Roger Mayne’s street photography of the 1950’s and 1960’s. The stories, like Mayne’s photos, are a sympathetic response to impoverished young people at play in districts such as Notting Hill, Bermondsey and Nottingham.
Dark Matter
Frequently attracted to life’s dark side – at least in terms of fictional inspiration – the following stories can best be described as twisted tales.
5 Mornington Row is another art-inspired story – namely, Tea in the Bedsitter by the Camden Town artist Harold Gilman – but it sits equally well among Simon’s darker pieces. Just who is the rarely-seen, top-hatted figure in the room opposite Marjorie’s shabby bedsit?
A Meadow, the Grass Waist-High is about Smith and Wilson, two clean-up operatives who make a grim, yet poignant discovery. The story is informed both by the Japanese phenomenon of Kodokushi (‘lonely death’) and Carol Morley’s 2011 drama-documentary Dreams of a Life about Joyce Carol Vincent, a London woman whose remains were discovered in her rented flat over two years after she died.
A Whole Bunch of Characters explores 19th-century New York’s demi-monde in this devilish story about a man’s confession to an unfortunate priest.
It’s Still an Animal Dressed That You Are demonstrates that some men are, literally, pigs.
In Little Deaths of Salesmen a couple deal with door-to-door salesmen in their own, uniquely depraved way.
Where’d He Sit, the Old Man? The trained eye of a house clearance man unearths more than just hidden treasure.
Flash Fiction
Simon’s many ‘flash’ pieces include:
Birth, Marriage, and The One That Comes After That. A car journey leads to the ultimate destination.
Picture This. A young woman is entranced by a magical painting, but what happens when she returns with her fiancé to see it for a second time?
Real Doll. A young girl’s birthday gift is the genuine article.
Sunday Morning with Valerie Solanas. The boyfriend of the notorious author of Scum Manifesto is a helpless witness to his partner’s descent into paranoia.
What About Vienna? A health-care worker and her patient go on an imaginary journey.
What You Think You Know About the Abbey Road Album Cover is Wrong. A comic debunking of the mythology surrounding The Beatles’ 1969 studio album.
