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Phil Olsen — Writer of s(h)orts
Phil Olsen is a writer from Liverpool who enjoys finding the absurd in the everyday. He has a master’s in Creative Writing from the University of Manchester’s Centre for New Writing.
As a part-time creative writing tutor on the University of Liverpool’s Continuing Education programme, Phil teaches evening courses in ‘Flash Fiction: Short Shorts & Restrictive Briefs’ (Feb – April) and ‘A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words – Writing short stories inspired by art’ (Sept – Nov), as well as workshops exploring Oulipo and graphic novels.
In 2023, he ran the ‘Flashback: Canning Dock Flash Fiction Competition’ in collaboration with Writing on the Wall and National Museums Liverpool. This included developing writing exercises and prompts, delivering free creative writing workshops in Merseyside libraries (Spellow, Garston, Toxteth and Birkenhead Central), and shortlisting the entries.
Phil won the University of Liverpool Short Story Competition 2022 and has previously won three flash fiction competitions: the Northern Short Story Festival Slam, Writing on the Wall’s WoWFest, and Book Week Scotland.
“I chose ‘Red Eye Reduction’ to be the overall winner because the story managed to combine so many elements with apparently so little effort. Structuring the narrative around the entirely visualisable but oddly abstract activity which is computer picture editing, the writer was able to handle characterisation while pulling in the other thematic strands with humour and panache.”
