L’Esprit Literary Review
Judged by Michael Nath
I like fiction that banquets the reader. Too much fiction now follows a strict diet.
Michael Nath
Original portrait of Leopold Bloom drawn by Issue One Contributor Jennifer Ostopovich
L’Esprit seeks short fiction exhibiting exceptional ingenuity and vision in narration, now sponsored by Chill Subs’ Contest Transparency Program.
After receiving 315 total submissions, we are pleased to announce the Grand Prize Winner; along with the Second Place and Third Place Awards; Finalists; and Shortlist & Longlist Nominees:
2026 Leopold Bloom Prize for Innovative Narration
Guest Judge: Michael Nath
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Grand Prize Winner || Publication in L’Esprit Issue Eight and $500 USD
The Road Out of View, H. L. Onstad
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Second Place Award || Publication in L’Esprit Issue Eight and $150 USD
Hula Girl, Margaret Dunn
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Third Place Award || Publication in L’Esprit Issue Eight and $100 USD
Beatnik By The Lee, Jennifer McMahon
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Finalists || Publication in L’Esprit Issue Eight and $50
Salvo, Chance Freihaut
Lady MacBeth in Universe X, Jessica Faulkner
Shortlist:
A Walk In Beirut, Yara Zgheib
Load Bearing, Miah Jeffra
An Occurrence at Foulbreek Ridge, Stephen Coates
Johnny Bash, Rian Casey Cork
Things Hephaestus Remembers, Daniel Holloway
The Business Park, William Preston
Cartwheels, Michael Howard
Reflections on the Occasion, Zakir Jamal
Finest Hour, Andrew Lorenzen
Fuck Me Eyes, Olivia Wieland
Parables of the Dead, Joachim Glage
Ars Poëtica, Mary Lannon
No Plus One, Hannah Berman
Longlist:
Tennis Dress, Stephanie Wilson
Blind Spot, Oana Chirliǎ
My Body Is My Own Canvas, Carella Keil
Family of Five, Corey Stanfield
The Five-Year Plan, Henrick Karoliszyn
Part Two of All He Ever Does: Standing, Adrian Paul
Islands, Oliver Judd
See How They Run, Claude Clayton Smith
In Benalmadena with Katherine Mansfield, John Storey
Blank Summer, Brigitte de Valk
Background Noise, Peter DeMarco
Salomé, Salma Galal
Gone Rancid, Alli Schroeder
Badag, Brett Willis
Poor Tom, Aimee Keeble
The Erotics of Escarole, Jesse Curran
Hi-Roc Lanes, Quinn Butterfield
Good Wrinkles , Hunter A. Allund
The Usual Tumors and Curses, Kelly Bryan
Ambient Conditions, Jeffrey-Michael Kane
The Lovers, Cosmo Hinsman
Blue Light, Jodi Lawaich
Thank you for your support of fearless writing.
Michael Nath is a British author and academic.
His first novel, La Rochelle (2010), was shortlisted for the 2011 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. His second, British Story: A Romance (2014), was a Morning Star Book of the Year. It was described by The Times Literary Supplement as “a wonderful exercise in novelistic virtuosity, strange and beautiful.”
His most recent novel, The Treatment, (Quercus, 2020), was a critical success: The Guardian (Michael Donkor: “it is the voices and the language that make this novel such a triumph”); iPaper (Sarah Hughes: “His writing is addictive, sometimes strange, often beautiful”); Arts Desk (“A London novel to join the greats”); Morning Star (Paul Simon: “beautifully vulgar”); Tablet (hailed by AN Wilson: “Some of the most interesting dialogue I’ve read in years … a fantastic book”); Metro (Anthony Cummings: “a maverick project that defies comparison”)
Michael on what he likes in fiction:
I like authors who are doing it their way; their ‘signature against the world’. This is why I admire novels as far apart as Wuthering Heights and Neuromancer: Emily Brontë and William Gibson were making the rules for themselves. This is why I read Moby Dick twice in my first term as an undergrad. And why I keep reading Musil, Kafka, Joyce; Sir Water Scott, Jane Austen, Dostoevsky.
To me, there is nothing more important than voice. What is voice? The most familiar mystery; is there anything more friendly?
Above anyone, I admire Shakespeare: a dramatist, also one of the greatest writers of prose; he indicated the future for the novel in English. The prose of Shakespeare has the vigour of an ever-growing tree; I like prose that is woody, not lapidary: living, not stony.
Listen to Nietzsche: ‘Of prime necessity is life: a style should live.’
And let’s add that Shakespeare was supreme at setting problems, rather than solving them. I like fiction that dives deep, without checking its oxygen.
I like fiction that laughs. When the royal librarian begged Jane Austen to try an historical romance, she wrote back to him that they’d hang her for laughing: ‘I must keep to my own style & go on in my own way.’ Huzza!
And I like fiction that banquets the reader. Too much fiction now follows a strict diet.
I don’t care for fiction in the present tense: we weren’t all born this morning.
And I like fiction that has its way with my heart; Jane Eyre has its way, every time.
An interview with Michael can be found here.
Dan White, Private Collection
in mediam mentem // Leopold Bloom Prize
L'Esprit Literary Review 