GALLEY BEGGAR PRESS SHORT STORY PRIZE 2025/26
Ten questions with GBP Short Story Prize author Annie Hayter
HI ANNIE, AND CONGRATULATIONS ON BEING LONGLISTED FOR THE GBP SHORT STORY PRIZE! CAN YOU PLEASE INTRODUCE YOUR STORY, ‘THE DEVIL’S ALPHABET’, IN TWO OR THREE SENTENCES?
Thank you so much! ‘A Devil’s Alphabet’ is a tale of pregnant monks, who live in fear of devilish visitations and the babies that roam their land with snapping jaws. Relayed in fragments by Brother O, our teenaged narrator lives in a fever dream of mushrooming abandon. In this community, flesh of any kind is savoured – for the flock must be fed…
PLEASE TELL US A BIT MORE ABOUT THE INSPIRATION FOR ‘THE DEVIL’S ALPHABET’ TOO – AND THE WRITING OF IT.
Last summer, I went to Paris for the first time. On the night that me and my partner arrived, we walked to Sacré-Cœur, and I lit a candle for my Nana, fervent Catholic that she was. We wandered around in awe. I held my beloved’s hand like the gay little heathen I am and stared at the gobstopping ceiling. Whenever I visit feats of architecture like this, I wonder how many people died during its construction, what blood has seeped into the foundations.
Suddenly, a bunch of nuns clouded onstage and started singing in perfect euphony, led by a holy sister whose authority was clarion. A queer feeling ran over me, and then the opening line, ‘one of the monks is pregnant again’ popped into my noggin. I then immediately texted this phrase to myself (more obscene behaviour in a holy place). I bashed the bulk of the story out in a two-hour sitting. Then, for a month, when I should have been asleep, I was quite devoted to Brother O, winnowing these fragments down.
ONE OF THE THINGS THAT WE LOVED ABOUT ‘THE DEVIL’S ALPHABET’ WAS ITS UNEXPECTEDNESS – YOU USE GENTLY STRANGE SYNTAX, AND, FOR EXAMPLE, UPEND TRADITIONAL EXPECTATIONS ABOUT GENDER. CAN YOU SAY A BIT MORE ABOUT THIS – AND HOW YOU’VE MANAGED TO CRAFT THE STORY IN SUCH A WAY THAT IT WEARS THESE THINGS SO LIGHTLY?
That’s generous of you to say. Once, in a school choir rehearsal in our local church, a girl in my year sat in a middle pew and ate an entire Tupperware of spag bol with a nonchalance that belied the godly setting. She was also known for her inveterate shoplifting, stealing gifts for other students, who were secretly sneering. I admired her nerve with the perpetual heart of a sinner, observing a saint at work. All which is to say – as the child of a lapsed Catholic, I am always balancing my shame and superstition with a reverence for shining things.
It’s been observed of my family, that when we tell stories about horrible past experiences, we do so with a massive grin. I’ve often tried to peel that smile off, but find myself somehow statued. So, humour is one dissociative mode I operate in. In a world of increasingly absurd cruelties, we must find the hope in carrying on, to know that our little pain is but a pebble among the great road of suffering. And humans do so love to recount stories of grand humiliations…
Brother O’s voice, so cheerfully, unconsciously naïve, is working within their own understanding of the world they’ve grown into. I wanted to place a relentless optimist in this situation, with some inward brightness that drives them forward beyond the dawn, a protection amid the poison. Their language is queerly crumpled because of their unusual upbringing.
In terms of gender, as a non-binary person, I often write characters who are in genderflux… In this little island right now, trans people are one of many marginalised groups being shat on by the government and our wealthy overlords. I don’t want any more of my friends and community to die for the crime of existing.
And I know their scapegoating is entwined with the white supremacist hellscape on a global scale – from the ongoing genocides in Sudan and Palestine, border violence, imperial slaughter, paedophile rings, racial capitalism, climate destruction to the actual misogyny which murders people every day.
The British government’s contortions to justify fascism make me sick, as do the deflections of abusers and their supporters. We bear witness time and time again to perpetrators who have long been treated as beyond recrimination, who feel that the act of being accused is the greatest injustice of all.
In my story, I wanted to find some small resistance. To offer Brother O the possibility (if not the absolution) of breaking the cycle. Of taking words once used to control the brethren and flipping them to find a new meaning – even if the ultimate outcome is ambiguous. Relying upon old systems, will they repeat these patterns as much as they might try to break them?
AND THE STRUCTURE. ‘THE DEVIL’S ALPHABET’ IS TOLD IS A SERIES OF COMPRESSED VIGNETTES. HOW DID YOU ARRIVE AT THAT?
The day-to-day life of Brother O is structured by the endless cycle of labour and chores that sustain any society. I was interested in showing O’s glimpses of excitement, wonder or pain that disrupt their silent work, especially given the paucity of words they are allotted in the order. These fragments unfold in snatched amounts of tiny time because O wouldn’t be permitted to be on their own very often in this environment – let alone think.
HOW MUCH OF AN IDEA DO YOU HAVE, OR DID YOU PLOT, OF THE WORLD THAT IS CONTINUING OUTSIDE OF THE COMMUNITY’S CONFINES?
I had various sub-plots which I binned, because I was over-writing. I intended the monk’s inner sanctum to feel dreamlike, with a fable-ish sensibility. The outside world is constructed by the monks as an abstracted hell by comparison to the tight-knit environs of the flock.
My grandfather was an evangelist who would preach to people on the street, though his sermons about Christian charity did not extend to his treatment of his family. Still, he felt secure in his place in heaven… Being raised in the shadow of his doctrine, I’ve long been interested in apostasy, and the machinations of cults. In this story, I wanted to explore the ways in which sexual abuse is both hidden away and acting in plain sight; an operation embedded in our societies and homes.
Having survived CSA myself, growing up in a family culture tainted by generations of sexual abuse, I know too well how it feels to live in denial, carrying a guilt that is not my own. In writing this story, I wished to investigate what it means to be made in someone’s image; the perverse, funhouse mirror of their shame – and the self-cannibalising this can cause.
Silence begets silence, just abuse often begets abuse. There is a strange counterbalance between the acknowledgement of this violence and creating new forms of spectacle. That’s a tension which I’m continually thinking about.
OK! ON TO YOUR WRITING MORE GENERALLY. HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN WRITING? DO YOU HAVE A DAILY ROUTINE? ARE YOU WORKING ON SOMETHING AT THE MOMENT?
I am a scrawling person, filleting away dreams and morsels into various unfinished notebooks, whichever ones best fit the shape of the thought I need to get down. However, once something is placed in a notebook, it might get lost into the paper void, so I text myself the juiciest bits. I like to think this process falls into the chaotic good category.
My soul is split across a poetry pamphlet, a short story collection, and my best beloved, a novel about the man, the woman, the icon, Pope Joan themself. It’s not nice to have favourites among your children, but it means so much to me.
WHAT’S THE BEST WRITING TIP YOU’VE EVER RECEIVED, AND WHAT’S THE WORST?
BEST: When I was fortunate enough to be a London Writers Awardee, the amazing editor Aliya Gulamani kindly made me a submissions spreadsheet that listed different publications and competitions, suggesting I use this as an organising principle against overwhelm. I still use that document to this day, creating new tabs for each year, and inputting deadlines for sending writing out into the ether. When I open it, I feel held by her gentle reassurance, and the possibility of grids.
WORST: I was seven when my (atheist) Grandma asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. I said, ‘A POET!’. Reader, I was a precocious little thing. She said ‘well, you can’t make any money doing that’. In the long run, Granny’s advice was not entirely true.
I do make money in the sidling avenues of poetry, in singing and writing poems for elders on hospital wards, teaching kids that their words matter, giving lectures to teachers, making space for delight and grief in equal measure, crafting reviews, editing other people’s work and performing my own… even if most of it goes to my landlord in the end.
HABITS, TOO. WHAT’S A BAD WRITING HABIT YOU HAVE – AND GIVE US ONE THAT’S PROVED FAIRLY USEFUL, TOO.
When I have pressing deadlines, my brain really enjoys pissing around all day and then as soon as midnight comes calling, I gain laser focus, working until dawn, with the foxes crawling around. Often, I don’t move from the chair at all. This is not great for my eyebags, or for maintaining my circadian rhythms… But this night-owling process usually gets the thing done.
I was raised in a household with lots of accents and impressions. I always read my work aloud in a different manner of speaking to my own – doing a poor man’s Saoirse Ronan, or Ian McMillan’s dulcet tones, if he’d sipped helium. Recording this is a helpful test to spot false notes and clunky syntax.
I also LOVE the read aloud function of robot voices. Their placid tones are an invaluable accessibility tool, even as I am horrified by AI rotting our literacy and climate.
OTHER WRITERS. CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT SOME AUTHORS YOU ADMIRE, AS WELL AS SOME THAT YOU ARE INFLUENCED BY?
My parents often took me and my sister to our local library, which sat in the same building as a swimming pool, so reading had a delicious chloriney smell. These days, I possess 11 library cards, and am blessed by the embarrassment of riches below…
Helen Oyeyemi for surreal and gender-flipping brilliance, Hayao Miyazaki for bringing the spirits home, Arundhati Roy for deliciously radical trunks of non-fiction and fiction, Eimear McBride for gutting my life open, A. Sivanandan as a revolutionary lodestar, Jeanette Winterson all day, Lucille Clifton for bittersweet brevity, Beverly Glenn-Copeland’s hope made ever-new, Rungano Nyoni for bewitching truth, Fiona Apple’s unfurling, Jay Bernard for transcendence medieval and modern, Lucas Rijneveld’s fielding brilliance, Akwaeke Emezi for their godspitting glory, Bill Callahan for wooded dreaming, Mariana Enriquez for mouthing the dark, Hanif Abdurraqib for boundless tenderness, Paula Rego’s great lullabying ram, Luna Carmoon’s beautifully begrimed Hoard, Lubaina Himid’s Invisible Strategies, Adania Shibli for her unflinching voice, Danez Smith for every ampersand, Catherine Lacey for the incandescent Biography of X, Jackie Kay’s blazing Trumpet, Alice Rohrwacher for upending the past, Inga Moore’s Six-Dinner Sid (what a stonker), and So Much by Trish Cooke, in the infinite care that all children deserve.
FINALLY, “THE HORROR OF THE BLANK PAGE.” DO YOU FEEL THAT HORROR? AND HOW WOULD YOU ADVISE OTHER WRITERS TO GET BEYOND IT?
I do and I don’t! I doodle demons in the margins of blank pages…
The horror for me is in not allowing myself to do the things I love doing – which is writing, amongst others. So, I’d advise finding a way to give yourself permission – even if that’s getting a friend to write you a permission slip. So many people experience barriers to artmaking when they have not been offered the resources / space / time / encouragement.
When we were kids, my Mum got us to write down letters about difficult experiences which she sewed into a pouch. Then we put them on a bonfire. This kind of destruction (tearing pages up, making rituals) can be powerful magic. Reading back over old writing can trigger new versions. My glittery dream diary as an 8-year-old was pretty apocalyptic, so some hoarding comes in handy. This also applies to flicking through old photos or emails. Stephen Ellcock’s archive of images is another treasure trove to inspire writing.
ANNIE HAYTER was born in a paddling-pool in South London, beneath a waning Cancer moon. They delight in writing about queer transformations, flatulent saints and sloughed skins. They won BBC Proms Young Poet, were a runner up for the Times Young Poet of The Year, came third in the Cúirt New Writing Prize for Poetry, and were shortlisted for the Desperate Literature Prize, The Bridport Prize for Flash Fiction, The White Review’s Poet’s Prize, the Sylvia Plath Prize, The London Magazine Short Story Prize and Young People’s Laureate for London. Annie’s writing has been published in The London Magazine, The Big Issue, TimeOut, The Rialto, MAGMA, and other anthologies. They have performed on Radio 3 and at venues including the Barbican, Southbank Centre, Cheltenham Literary Festival and the Forward Prizes.