To Hull And Back Short Story Competition Results 2025

All the judges and everyone else involved with the competition continue to give their time for free, which I appreciate greatly. This is something I would like to address in future. If the entry numbers continue to rise, maybe it will be possible.

Entries this year came from a large number of locations around the planet. They include: Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Croatia, Cyprus, England, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Jersey, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Scotland, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, USA, Wales and Yemen.

I've kept track of the different points of view used to tell the stories again this year, in my usual geektastic fashion. Hey, I find it interesting. Here are the figures:

• Stories written in first person (I did, I said): 42%
• Stories written in second person (you did, you said): 1%
• Stories written in third person (she did, he said, they wanted): 51%
• Other (stories that were presented as advice, anecdotes, answer machine messages, articles, diaries, emails, football match reviews, letters, meeting notes, message boards, monologues, news stories, newsletters, phone calls, plays, poems, recipes, scripts, video transcripts, Whitehouse records, or used both first and third person etc.): 6%

Compared to 2023, first person is up 3.5%, second person is up 0.5%, third person is down 1% and other is down 3%.

In 2023, 79 entries didn't obey the rules (just over 13% of 594 entries). In 2025, that figure increased to 88 (again, this is just over 13% of 662 entries). I had to disqualify 23 of these entries compared to 29 in 2023, so the disqualification figure is down a bit. Most of the disqualifications were either excessively over the word limit, or failed to obey any of the rules.

This year, I received a lot of stories about AI, technology, the end of the world, social and economic collapse, the apocalypse and similar. I guess this is not surprising given the times we live in. Facing the seemingly endless doom in the news is hard, so it was nice to read satirical tales on the subject that were, for the most part, positive and uplifting.

I read Brief Answers to the Big Questions by Stephen Hawking while undertaking the To Hull And Back judging – I find nonfiction an enjoyable bedtime read when I’ve been reading fiction all day. Stephen was honest yet hopeful about our future on this planet, and maybe on other planets too. He also had a lovely sense of humour, which shines through, even in a book about (sometimes mindboggling) science. Stephen was an optimist. I found his book interesting, baffling, fascinating, scary and hopeful in equal measure.

Despite prevalent world trends of unfounded hate, misinformation, the rise of fascism, climate change, mass extinctions and all the other problems we face today, there is hope for humans. Most of us are decent.

I believe that laughter forms part of our hope. That’s why To Hull And Back will continue celebrating humour for as long as I am able to run the competition.

If you weren’t longlisted or shortlisted, please don’t be disheartened. I receive a lot of entries and there are only forty places on the longlist. This year, I had to select just 6% of the entries and reject 94%. Then I had to whittle that down to just 3% for the shortlist. I don't reject stories because I don't like them. I simply select the stories that are best suited to this competition.

That’s it. The ninth To Hull And Back competition is complete. I've read hundreds of stories. I've laughed a lot. I've been surprised and delighted by some truly magnificent writing. Thank you to everyone who has entered. This simply would not be possible without each and every one of you.

Until the next time, cheers me dears, Chris