Amy Luxton is a writer based in Yorkshire. She chiefly writes historical fiction and ghost stories, and enjoys exploring unique settings from both past and present. She is a member of the northern-based Writing Squad and won the Bridge Emerging Writer Award 2025.

Judge's comment:

This is a glorious piece of writing. Who wouldn’t fall all over again for a champagne-haired ex? Well, as it turns out, in a lurching twist that comes straight out of left field, the narrator wouldn’t. Or maybe they would, because they’re delighted, but they’re not going to. Because it’s too late. Two lives in only 80 words, with so much, wonderfully, off the page; a rushed seven-minute catch-up against a ‘swerve of pedestrians’; then that ‘sharp, strange little question’ with its thin staccato ‘i’ and ‘e’ sounds echoing the sensible ‘fishing-line twitch of prior commitments’ and unkindly interrupting the seductive rhythms of those first two sentences. And the ex is ‘weltered’ as well! What more could anyone ask for?