We’re thrilled to introduce you to Richie Jones, one of talented writers shortlisted for the Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize and the winner of a Studio Faire Residency Award!

DESPERATE LITERATURE

Desperate Literature is an international bookshop in Madrid, Spain, and the joint project of Charlotte Delattre and Terry Craven. Annually they offer the Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize, which aims to celebrate the best of new short fiction and to give winners the most visibility possible for their writing. All eleven shortlisters have the opportunity to be published in multiple print and online journals, have their work put in front of literary agents, and present their stories in multiple countries.

Studio Faire has partnered with Desperate Literature for the 2024 award, to offer one shortlisted writer funded accommodation for a two-week residency.

NUGGY SPINS THE LEMONS

After reading the fabulous shortlisted stories, we were unanimous in our decision to offer Richie Jones the award for his short story ‘Nuggy Spins the Lemons’. This story really struck a nerve, making us guffaw and leaving us wanting more.

“In long and short form fiction my aim is to use irony, satire, comic forms (reversals, absurdity, farce etc) to explore our society at a macro and micro level. To paraphrase Percival Everett, once you’ve got the reader laughing you can do all sorts of other things to them.”

Nuggy was called Nuggy because by the time he was thirteen he was bald in one very neat circle right on the top of his head. The remaining hair was styled in a bowl cut, and at first he was referred to as The Monk. But someone, that ubiquitous schoolyard someone, suggested that the bald patch looked like the result of vigorous and relentless nuggying, like some demonic bully had placed him an inescapable headlock and thrashed their knuckles across the bonce until friction did its business. This was an attractive image to the schoolboy, unfettered bullying beyond all sense and judgment – what they all really wanted to do to each other in that squalid muggy dreamscape of their desires, unadmitted. So that was that: Nuggy. The victim named for the crime, a stain that could not be washed away… although it could be covered with a hat.

Excerpt from ‘Nuggy Spins the Lemons’ by Richie Jones

Originally from Merseyside, but now living in North London, Richie wrote his first novel, ‘People from Good Homes’ in 2021. He started writing short stories shortly after and has since been shortlisted for The London Magazine Short Story Prize, the Scratch A4 Competition and, now, the Desperate Literature Prize. His work has been published in The London Magazine and in HOWL New Irish Writing.

In Spring 2025, Studio Faire will offer him the time and the space to clear his head, so he can finalise the structure of his second novel. We look forward to welcoming him and reading it!

Find Richie Jones on X @Richie__Jones

Read the full story and all of the other shortlisted stories in ‘Desperate Literature’s Eleven Stories 2024’, available in PDF (2.50€) and print (9.50) from Desperate Literature here.