Rebecca Swirsky is a London-based writer specialising in short fiction, and is being mentored by the writer Stella Duffy through the Word Factory Apprenticeship. Rebecca's fiction is featured in, among others, the ’13 Bridport Anthology and the Big Issue in the North Anthology, Matter, Ambit, The View From Here, Ink Sweat & Tears, The Pygmy Giant, Stories for Homes anthology for Shelter, Cease, Cows and online Royal Academy of Arts Magazine. She has been highly commended for The Manchester Fiction Award, shortlisted for the Bridport Flash Fiction and Short Story Prize, Fish Short Fiction Prize, commended for the Bristol Short Story Award, longlisted for The Bath Short Story Award and Sean O’Faolin Prize, semi-finalist in the Big Issue in the North anthology and awarded third prize in Ilkley’s Literature Festival. Copywriting includes journalism for the Royal Academy of Arts Magazine online, the Royal Society of Literature Review and an acupuncture blog. In March 2013, Rebecca will be running Flash Fiction and Art Workshops and Life Writing Workshops as part of Haringey’s Literature Live Festival, for which she hopes you'll join her. She won the A.M. Heath prize for her MA (Distinction) in Writing at Sheffield Hallam University and is shaping her debut collection 2.4, for which she was awarded a Literary Consultancy Free Read bursary.