Angelita Lapuz Bradney, writer
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About Angelita
Angelita Lapuz Bradney is a prize-winning fiction writer. Her work has been published in literary magazines and anthologies and performed on stage. She has an MA in Creative and Life Writing from Goldsmiths, University of London, and is a graduate of the Faber Academy.
You can read many of her short stories below, including All that water must be unimaginably heavy, which won the £4000 National Memory Day short story competition in 2017. You can also find details of her novel-in-progress, Wildwood, which was runner-up in the 2021 Writers & Artists 'Turn the Page' competition.
Photo by Steven Kamenar on Unsplash.“Angelita’s writing is clear, cold, seemingly dispassionate, taking us to the heart of trauma and its effects on memory, leaving the reader with the spaces to wonder what we and history may also choose to forget. This is superb writing: both imaginatively rich and confidently spare in crafting.” Cathy Galvin, Director of The Word Factory, Co-Founder of The Sunday Times EFG Short Story Prize, and judge of the 2017 National Memory Day short story competition.
Wildwood
At a family reunion in a remote woodland cottage, a mother and daughter must face their ghosts and unravel the dark secret in their Filipino family heritage.
When Grace Torres was fourteen years old, she fled her home town in the Philippines burdened with an unspeakable secret. Decades and continents later, she is separated from her English husband and living in Wildwood, a crumbling cottage in the ancient forests of the west of England. Her twenty-nine-year-old daughter, Nina, has never recovered from her chaotic adolescence and her struggles to fit in as a mixed-race teenager in this isolated corner of the country. Worse, she has a guilty secret of her own that may be driving the disturbing events that strike whenever she visits Wildwood.
When Grace organises a family reunion it could be a chance for Nina to lay her ghosts to rest. But Nina will find that some traumas run deep as tree roots, tangled in her heritage that leads back to the witch doctors and headhunting tribes of the Philippines.Wildwood would appeal to readers of Ponti by Sharlene Teo, Sisters by Daisy Johnson, or Fragile Monsters by Catherine Menon.
RUNNER-UP: Writers & Artists Turn the Page competition 2021
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash.
Short stories and flash fiction
Angelita's short stories and flash fiction have been published in various literary magazines and anthologies. A couple of her favourites are Gap (published by Ellipsis Zine) and Is there magic here? (published by The Fiction Pool).
Angelita's work has also been shortlisted and highly commended in many competitions including the Fish prize, Inktears, Retreat West, City Writes, Writers' Forum magazine and Shooter Literary Magazine. She won the 2017 National Memory Day short story competition with All that water must be unimaginably heavy.
Short story published in Shooter literary magazine 'Escape' issue, August 2021
A rare date night and an accident at home pushes one woman to acknowledge the truth about her marriage.
Available to buy here.
Flash fiction published in Ellipsis Zine, March 2021
A relationship, a beach, a secret.
Winner, Bromley libraries 'life under lockdown' writing competition 2020. Creative non-fiction published by Dear Damsels, June 2020
"Friday, Day 40 (feels like 140)..."
A reflection on the highs and lows of lockdown as a working mother.
Flash fiction published by Fictive Dream, March 2020
A reclusive old man responds to the troubling events of 2020.
Flash fiction published by Ellipsis Zine, March 2020. Republished by FlashFlood June 2020.
"Choose a pen that writes the colour of your curiosity, mark your books with your name and mine." Perhaps you once had a teacher like Miss Quinn?
Published by Inktears, August 2019. Highly commended in the 2018 Inktears short story competition
A misdemeanour committed in a seaside town has lifelong consequences.
An earlier version of this story was performed in 2015 by Liars' League NYC.
Shortlisted for the Writers Forum short story competition.
Short story published by the Cabinet of Heed, December 2018
An old recipe book forces someone to re-evaluate a painful childhood.
Shortlisted for the 2018 Link Age Southwark short story competition.
Short story published in Riggwelter, September 2018
A stand-in fortune teller has an unexpected visitor.
Flash fiction, published by The Fiction Pool, June 2018 and republished by FlashFlood, June 2019
"I take Sindy and Barbie to the woods..."
Come and Gone
Flash fiction published April 2018 in Nothing is As It Was, an anthology of short stories about climate change.
A seaside town, before and after.
Winner City Writes 2018, longlisted for the 2017 Dorset Fiction Award, and selected by Retreat West for this anthology.
Available from Amazon.
Golden Eyes
Published by Stories for Homes 2, October 2017
A stray cat pushes an elderly man to make a life-changing decision.
Published in Stories for Homes 2, a wonderful anthology of fiction on the theme of 'home'. All profits from the book go to the charity Shelter.
Available from Amazon.
Creative non-fiction published by Ellipsis Zine, October 2017
"When I was young my mother told me I had family on the other side of the world."
Lobsterfest
Published by Retreat West, September 2017
Flash fiction published by FlashFlood, June 2017
"He didn't sign up for this when he swiped right."
All that water must be unimaginably heavy
Winner of the 2017 National Memory Day short story competition
The judge, Cathy Galvin, Director of The Word Factory and Co-Founder of The Sunday Times EFG Short Story Prize, commented:
“Angelita’s writing is clear, cold, seemingly dispassionate, taking us to the heart of trauma and its effects on memory, leaving the reader with the spaces to wonder what we and history may also choose to forget. This is superb writing: both imaginatively rich and confidently spare in crafting.”
You can read the story, along with the winners from the other categories, here.
Published by Litro, February 2016
A schoolgirl horror story. Shortlisted for the 2014 Fish short story prize.
Photo credits: JP Valery (Saturday Night), Adrian Craig (Bembridge Beach), Valentina Locatelli (While this lasts), Alex Atudosie (Other Folks' Troubles), Ramakant Sharda (Miss Quinn), Josh Withers (The Tower), Jessica Castro (Book, Kitchen, Shelf), Tom Quandt (Illumination), Wendy Aros Routman (Empty nest), Charles Deluvio (A peachy moment), Christiane Teston (Is there magic here?), Jeremy Vessey (Other Chances), Jordan Opel (Gap), Amy Humphries (Tinder), Tomas Robertson (All that water), Andalucia Andaluia (She).
