Announcing our Landmarks Flash Fiction Competition winner & runners-up
BY Maya Fernandes
25th Jun 2026
We're delighted to announce the winner and runners-up of our Landmarks flash fiction competition!
To celebrate the landmark moment of 300 Curtis Brown Creative students securing commercial book deals, we invited writers to share flash fiction with us inspired by the theme of ‘Landmarks’. We’re delighted to announce the winning stories selected from over 250 entries.
The winner of the competition is Zelda Cahill-Patten with her charming and bittersweet short story 'Invisible Smiths'. Zelda has been awarded a £300 Curtis Brown Creative gift voucher and a year-long membership to The Writing Studio (worth £240).
Our runners-up are Kate Safford Banks for her story 'Seahenge' and Hannah Cushion for her story 'The Green Lady'. Both Kate and Hannah have won six months' access to The Writing Studio (worth £150).
We’ve published the winning and runner-up stories on this blog, and hope you’ll find them as captivating as we do!
Winner:
Zelda Cahill-Patten, Invisible Smiths
- Zelda Cahill-Patten is a poet and short-fiction writer from London. She loves to explore folklore and forgotten histories in her work. Her poetry has been widely published, in journals such as Acumen, Magma and The North, and her debut short story ‘The Policeman’s Daughter’ is forthcoming with Sans. PRESS.
Zelda's entry:
Papa takes me to Wayland’s Smithy. At eight years old, my mind doesn’t reach for neolithic burial site; I think it’s a strange, squat home, perfectly sized for a child or overgrown elf. He tells me I’m right: this, love, is where Wayland lives.
Who’s Wayland? I ask.
Ah, Papa says. He’s an invisible man who fixes shoes.
He describes the fabled blacksmith. How he is as old and unseeable as the wind; how, if a traveller’s horse breaks its shoe on the path, Wayland will forge a fresh one in the night.
But remember, he says. You’ve got to leave Wayland a bit of money. He has bills to pay, like us mortals. You just put some cash here on the barrow, and in the morning it’s gone.
Then Papa plucks a coin – some tourist’s offering – out of a seam in the drystone. A magician pulling a penny from a child’s ear.
And over the years, I wonder what else Wayland can mend.
a smashed snow globe
my favourite skirt, turmeric-stained
frizzy hair, crooked teeth
the torn breath in his faltering lungs
I return to the long barrow in my twenties, bringing a tattered kite we used to fly on the nearby White Horse Hill. Now, I search the information panel for stories of the legendary smith, but find nothing. Kneeling to crawl into the damp-smelling chamber, I am so close to stone-age bones and invisible men. I spread coins in a ring around the skeletal kite, a child arranging broken toys.
Sometime in the night, this is what may happen. Polyester will re-knit, its holes closed by transparent thread. My payment will dissolve into the dark. And a breeze-swollen kite will rise from the tomb’s mouth. I’ll return to find the barrow empty.
Runners-up:
Kate Safford Banks, Seahenge
- Kate Safford Banks lives by the sea in North Norfolk. By day she works in the office of a complex needs school, by night she dreams of the next chapter. Since graduating from Exeter University Kate has been an actor, an auctioneer and everything in between.
Kate's entry:
Exposure to the North Sea air and saltwater was bad news, there were already signs of erosion. Excavation, therefore, was necessary. So said the experts. Journalists were calling the discovery ‘Seahenge’, on account of its shape I supposed. A circle not of stone but of millenia-old timber, closely-fitted oak posts around a huge upturned tree stump. Bull’s eye. A bronze age landmark, revealed right there on Holme beach.
“It’s such an obvious name,” Kelly scoffed.
I shrugged. I thought ‘Seahenge’ was quite catchy.
We left college early, all of us bundled into two cars. Tammy knew a bloke who fancied himself as a druid and who had been in and out of the papers with acts of protest citing "spiritual ownership of the circle.” I felt sick, wedged into the corner behind the driver. I told myself it was because of the cigarette smoke which clung to the roof of the car in blue swirls. For an awful moment I thought I was going to cry.
“Can you open the window a bit, please?”
Nick had only recently passed his test. He fumbled for the crank handle on his door.
“Some people are never happy,” he said. Or something like that.
We could see the diggers from the dunes, going about their business like toys around a sand castle. Policemen stood watch in case protestors got feisty. “Come on!” Tammy yelled and they ran, my mates, slipping and sliding, half jumping over the dunes down to the flat sands. I stayed put, not wanting to leave that place where land meets sea and everything is blurred. I put my hands on my belly and at last the tears came. I licked the salt off my lips and stared at the landmark decision before me.
Hannah Cushion, The Green Lady
- Hannah Cushion is a Welsh writer and Creative Writing graduate from Swansea University. Her work draws on folklore, gothic fiction, and fantasy, with a particular focus on identity and the uncanny.
Hannah's entry:
Caerphilly Castle is not empty. Even in daylight, you can feel the eyes watching, peering out from moss-lorn stones.
I wander the grounds, retracing a path she once walked, across a green courtyard enclosed by vast grey walls—there is only one way in or out.
I follow my group to a small door and watch as they duck their heads.
A sign is bolted to the stone. I read it as I pass.
Are you alone?
It takes a few minutes for my eyes to fully adjust. We press shoulder to shoulder. The windows are narrow enough that only a sliver of light can get through.
The room is lined with jagged rock. Heavy breathing fades in and out alongside the constant tapping of water.
One by one, the group moves on. People filter from the room, whispers spilling between them.
It is quieter now.
But there is a soft, breathy sound that I know isn't mine.
The temperature has plunged. The room is dimmer, and I clench my hands, hoping that will stop the twitch in my fingers. I remind myself of the thin cord of light and imagine it as my tether.
I take a deep breath and mutter her name—the name that no one says anymore.
“Alice?”
A hollow sigh echoes around the chamber.
I blink and think the chill is gone, but it rests upon my skin.
I am rooted to the spot as the next group filters in. My nails bite into my palm. Without looking back, I lower my head below the threshold's stone arch and rejoin the others.
Despite the sun, the hair on my arms refuse to settle; a hollowness clings to me, and as everyone else moves on, I can feel the eyes following me.
Congratulations to these fantastic writers, and thank you to everyone who entered our flash fiction competition. We've loved reading all of your entries!