David Hughes

David I. Hughes is a UK writer based in West Cornwall. His work appears in The Berlin Review, Superpresent, Gyroscope Review, Sky Island, Poetose, London Grip, and Ink Sweat & Tears amongst others. He won the 2026 October Project and Streetlight International Poetry Prizes, was a semi finalist in the LitFox poetry book prize and shortlisted in the Fish Poetry prize. He has been shortlisted for the Mairtín Crawford and Julia & Martin Wilson short story prizes as well as the Flash500 and Storybottle short story prizes. His fiction appears in Hermitage Press ‘Salt & Stone’, Four Tulip’s ‘Out to Sea’ and Hollowpoint’s ‘First Strike’ anthologies. He is author of The Listener (2025).

Shared Reckonings

Treen, West Cornwall — November
The barn sat at the end of a lane that had no business being called a road. Marta’s hire car scraped gorse on both sides, the branches clawing at the paintwork like something trying to pull her back. She had forgotten how narrow everything was here. How the land refused to accommodate machinery. How the sky seemed to press down on the granite as if testing it.