Roche wins 2025 Moth Short Story Prize
The Moth magazine has announced Australian author Clare Roche as the winner of the 2025 Moth Short Story Prize for ‘(Un)Tethered’.
Roche will receive €3,000 (A$5376), and ‘(Un)Tethered’ will be published in the Irish Times.
2025 judge Evie Wyld said Roche’s story took her ‘right back to the loneliness of having a small baby’. ‘The specific physical horror of it ‒ [this short story is] a really beautiful rendering of how solitary you feel in that moment, and how open to the morbid you are.’
Based on Gadigal land in Sydney, Roche has been shortlisted for several literary prizes, including the 2022 Banjo Prize. Her poetry has appeared online across Australia, Germany, the UK and the US.
Roche said, ‘I started writing fiction about six years ago; my husband and a handful of friends have been my readers and supporters. I’d hoped as a writer my words would connect with someone, somewhere. That my story has resonated with Evie Wyld, a writer who I’ve long admired, is both surreal and immensely validating.’
UK-based writer Martha Sprackland won second place for her story ‘Bee Box’, which Wyld described as ‘unsettling and folkloric in the best way’. Sprackland will receive a one-week residency at Circle of Misse in France with a travel stipend.
London-based writer Shelley Hastings was awarded third place for her story ‘Small Bad Things’. Wyld noted the story had a ‘fantastic expectation of violent horror’. Hastings will receive €1,000 (A$1792).
Wyld also commended six writers:
- Sally Bothroyd
- Finn Brown
- Aoife Inman
- Sophie James
- JG Lynas
- Susan Wigmore.
More information about the prize is available on the magazine’s website.
Category: Awards Local news
