JAN CARSON
Jan Carson is a Belfast based writer who has published four novels, three short story collections and two micro-fiction collections. Her novel The Fire Starters won the EU Prize for Literature for Ireland, 2019. The Raptures was shortlisted for the An Post Irish Novel of the Year and Kerry Group Novel of the Year. Her writing has aired on BBC Radio 3 and 4 and RTE and has been translated into twenty languages worldwide.
Jan was the Seamus Heaney Centre Fellow at Queen's University Belfast in 2025 and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Her latest novel, Few and Far Between was published in April 2026.
TRISTAN ROSENSTOCK
Tristan Rosenstock is a broadcaster with RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta, where he presents the arts series An Cúinne Dána. His debut book for young readers Inis Mara (LeabhairCOMHAR) was selected for World Book Day 2024, and he has since added two more to the Inis Mara series. He is co-editor of Inside Innti - A new wave in Irish Poetry (Cork University Press) and is literary editor of the magazine Comhar. He performs with traditional group Téada, who are celebrating 25 years on the road. He sits on the board of Poetry Ireland.
"I'm absolutely thrilled to be returning as a judge this year and am looking forward already to my summer reading. Last summer was very happily spent reading and discussing the submissions with my fellow-judges and we were struck by the highly original voices we encountered along the way. The RTÉ Short Story Competition offers a uniquely valuable platform for writers in English and Irish at various stages of their writing careers, and connects new writing with readers and radio audiences in a truly singular way."
AINGEALA FLANNERY
Aingeala Flannery is the author of The Amusements (Penguin), which won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year 2023 and the John McGahern Prize. Her short stories and essays have appeared in The Irish Times, Harper's Bazaar, Paper Visual Art, and Winter Papers, and have been broadcast on RTÉ Radio One. She is deputy publisher at The Dublin Review and is the current Kildare Library and Arts Service Writer-in-Residence at Maynooth University.
"Radio and short stories have been the twin passions of my working and creative life, so it was an absolute pleasure and honour to be asked to join Jan and Tristan to judge this year's RTÉ Short Story Competition. I would encourage anyone with a story, especially the secret writers out there, to seize this opportunity and give it a shot. It's free to enter, so you literally have nothing to lose. I will never forget where I was when I got the call to say that one of my stories had made the Francis MacManus shortlist. It gave me the confidence to call myself a writer and keep going."