The Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award 2011

20 winners, 1 prize... introducing you to this year's longlist for the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award 2011...

Fabian Acker 'Nirvana'

Fabian Acker has been a journalist for the last 20 years, winning the Sunday Times travel writer of the year award, and the BT award as science writer of the year, as well as writing travel stories for the BBC. After retiring Acker became Consultant Editor to Hydropower & Dams and completed an MA in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths in 2007.

Kevin Barry 'Fjord of Killary'

Kevin Barry is the author of the award-winning short story collection These Are Little Kingdoms and the forthcoming debut City of Bohane. 'Fjord of Killary' was first published in the New York Times in February 2010.

Meira Chand 'The Pilgrimage'

Meira Chand is the author of seven novels.  Waterstone's voted her recent novel, A Different Sky, their Cardholder's Book Circle Choice for July 2010.

Will Cohu 'East West - West Coast'

Will Cohu's previous books include Urban Dog and Out of The Woods. He is currently writing The Wolf Pit, a memoir of Yorkshire life for Chatto. Last year his short story, 'Nothing But Grass', was shortlisted for the inaugural Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award.

Anthony Doerr 'The Deep'

Anthony Doerr is the author of four novels and short stories. He has been awarded the Rome Prize, the Discover Prize, the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award and three O'Henry Prizes.

Michel Faber 'In the Woods with a Dead Dog'

Michel Faber a novelist and short story writer famed for his debut Whitbread-winning, Under The Skin and The Crimson Petal and the White.

Roshi Fernando 'The Fluorescent Jacket'

Roshi won the 2009 Impress Prize for New Writers, for her composite novel, Homesick, was given a special commendation by the judges of the Manchester Fiction Prize, and was longlisted for the Bridport Prize 2009.

Tibor Fischer 'Possibly Forty Ships'

Tibor Fischer was selected as one of the 20 'Best of Young British Novelists 2' by Granta magazine in 1993. His fiction includes The Thought Gang, The Collector Collector and Don't Read This Book If You're Stupid.

Xiaolu Guo 'Life by Accident'

Xiaolu Guo's first novel to be translated into English, Village of Stone, was shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the International Dublin IMPAC Awards. Her third novel, A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, was the first she has written in English and was nominated for the 2007 Orange Prize for Fiction.

Sarah Hall 'Vuotjarvi'

Sarah Hall is the author of Haweswater, which won the 2003 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Novel, a Society of Authors Betty Trask Award, and a Lakeland Book of the Year prize. Her third novel, The Carhullan Army, won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the James Tiptree Jr. Award, a Lakeland Book of the Year prize, and was shortlisted for the Arthur C Clarke Award for science fiction.

Tobias Hill 'Not that It Matters'

Tobias Hill's collection of stories, Skin, won the PEN/Macmillan Prize for Fiction and was shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys/Mail on Sunday Prize. His fiction also includes the novels Underground, The Love of Stones and The Cryptographer. Adaptations of his poetry and short stories have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and he is a Royal Society of Literature Fellow at Sussex University.

Susan Hill 'Crystal'

Susan Hill is an author, publisher and reviewer. Her 54 books include I'm the King of the Castle, winner of the W Somerset Maugham Award; The Albatross, winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, The Bird of Night which won the Whitbread Award for Fiction, and The Woman in Black.

Yiyun Li 'The Science of Flight'

Yiyun Li's debut collection, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, PEN/Hemingway Award, Guardian First Book Award, and California Book Award for first fiction. Her novel, The Vagrants, won the gold medal of California Book Award for Fiction. She was featured in The New Yorker's 20 Under 40 Fiction Issue.

Hilary Mantel 'Comma'

Hilary Mantel's novel Beyond Black was shortlisted for a 2006 Commonwealth Writers Prize and the 2006 Orange Prize for Fiction. In 2006 she was awarded a CBE. Her novel, Wolf Hall, won the 2009 Man Booker Prize for Fiction and the Walter Scott Prize and was shortlisted for the 2009 Costa Novel Award and 2010 Orange Prize for Fiction.

David Miller 'Fuck Being Happy'

Born in Norfolk in 1947, David Miller spent most of his career in advertising, as a copywriter and later a creative director at Ogilvy & Mather where for a few years he shared an office with Salman Rushdie. He wrote a successful adult thriller The Hyena Run, published under the pen-name 'David Morton'. 'Fuck Being Happy' is the lead title in a new collection of short stories called Deep Country which is awaiting publication.

Robert Shearman 'History Becomes You'

Robert Shearman is an award-winning playwright and author. His collection, Tiny Deaths won the World Fantasy Award and the follow-up, Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical won the Shirley Jackson Award, the British Fantasy Award, and the Edge Hill Short Story Readers Prize.

Erin Soros 'BC Almanac'

Erin Soros has published poetry, fiction and non-fiction. She is a two-time finalist for the Robert Olen Butler Prize and a winner of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's highest literary award. She won the Governor General's Gold Medal in 2001, the Commonwealth Prize for the Short Story in 2006 and the 2007 Charles Pick Fellowship at the University of East Anglia.

Louise Stern 'Black and White Dog'

Louise Stern is the founder and publisher of Maurice Magazine aimed at children who love art. Her first book Chattering is a collection of tales about sociable and adventurous young girls, distinct from their peers only because they are deaf.  Her short story, 'Black and White Dog', was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2010.

Gerard Woodward 'The Family Whistle'

Gerard Woodward's first novel, August, was shortlisted for the 2001 Whitbread First Novel Award, followed in 2004 by I'll Go To Bed At Noon, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction. His latest novels are Caravan Thieves and Nourishment.

Clare Wigfall 'Professor Arvind'

Clare Wigfall's highly-acclaimed debut book of stories The Loudest Sound and Nothing was published in 2007 with the opening story 'The Numbers' winning the 2008 BBC National Short Story Award. Clare is currently working on a new story collection, a novel and a children's picture-book called Has Anyone Seen My Chihuahua?