The transubstantiation of Eve by Alison Woodhouse

'It’s about silencing and persistence, about isolation and connection, about the redemptive power of community. The imagery – botanical, bodily, biblical – creates a rich symbolic landscape where every detail resonates.' - Amanda Saint

How I did it

The piece started out as a flash entitled ‘Bitesize’, about how information is parcelled out at GCSE level in bites, and we are expected to consume it. But then what happens to it? I imagined those bites getting stuck inside us like swallowing apple pips.

I entered ‘Bitesize’ for last year’s competition, and it was selected for the Best Women’s Short Fiction 2024 anthology. But I was never completely satisfied with it; I felt there was more I needed to do with it. So I withdrew it from the competition, and this year I went back to it. And the idea of Eve biting into the apple came to me – and I had an ‘Oh’ moment.

I started writing flash seriously in 2018 after a lifetime of false starts with novel writing – I have first drafts of five novels in a drawer. I had a literary agent briefly when I was in my 20s, and many years later I was accepted onto the Creative Writing MA at UEA, but decided not to take up the place. Life kept getting in the way. I had four children by the time I was 30, then retrained as a secondary-school English teacher and started working fulltime. It wasn’t until we moved to Bath and I enrolled on the MA at Bath Spa that I started to focus properly on the writing again.

Switching to flash fiction was the best thing I’ve ever done. It taught me to stay with the story and rewrite it over and over. At last I was writing things I could finish and submit. The form really suits me; I love obsessing about structure and subtext, and the way a story can exist outside the words. It’s like poetry in its power to carry multiple layers of meaning.

I began to be published and my confidence grew – and I started thinking about how to adapt the short form to longer pieces of fiction. I published a novella in-flash, and I’m currently working on a braided novel in multiple voices as part of my PhD. I’m taking what I’ve learnt from short fiction back to my novel. I’m really excited about this one; for the first time I know I’m not going to abandon it.

ALISON WOODHOUSE is studying for a PhD in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, following her MA at the same place, and helps run the Bath Short Story Award. Prior to this she has worked as anEnglish teacher and fiction reviewer, and has taught creative writing. Her short fiction has been widely published, including a novella-in-flash The House on the Corner (Ad Hoc, 2020) and a flash collection Family Frames (V Press 2021).

The finalists

Sophie Swatman for My Dark borded beauty
Sue Lewis for Over
Caroline Jenner for Tomorrow in the maze at Hever castle

The Shortlist

Francesca Millican-Slater for Soaked
Ingrid Keenan for Two pm
Jane Fuller for Jill-in-the-green
Amanda Marples for How a kid can think it's the magic that helps, when really, it's the love
Jaye Frisina for Penitent, I shed my skin
Toyosi Onikosi for Harvesting hope
Alexis Williams for The cut
Jessica Knight for Milo baby