Julia F. CliffordAuthor
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Short fiction

Small stories.
Long echoes.

Published, recognised and selected work across mystery, literary and speculative fiction.

Cover of A Right Cozy Christmas Crime

Published · Cozy crime

The Time Befana Saved Christmas

When her mother is too ill to oversee Viterbo’s Christmas Village, eighteen-year-old Anna steps into her place, only for the community’s treasured Christmas stocking to disappear and Carlo, the young actor playing the Grinch, to become the prime suspect. Determined to recover her mother’s beloved stocking and clear Carlo’s name, Anna follows a trail hidden in the files of a mysterious device, later identified as a floppy disk. The clues lead her into Viterbo’s underground tunnels, while she begins to wonder whether Befana, Italy’s beloved Epiphany witch, might be helping her uncover the truth.

Published in A Right Cozy Christmas Crime

View and buy the anthology on Amazon.co.uk
Cover of A Bouquet of Secrets

Published · Gothic mystery

Sketched in Blood

When Sheila disappears, her girlfriend searches the bedroom she left behind and finds a sketchbook filled with warnings, shifting ink and a grinning skull. Haunted by guilt and suspicious of Sheila’s homophobic uncle, she must decide whether the drawings are clues to a crime or evidence of something far more dangerous.

Published in the gothic-themed anthology A Bouquet of Secrets.

View the anthology on Amazon.co.uk

Honourable Mention · Globe Soup

The Silent Struggle

After enduring recurrent miscarriages in silence, Martha must finally tell Douglas why fear and grief have driven her away from the person she loves most.

This story has reached Honourable Mention level at Globe Soup's 2023 Open Short Story Competition. The story was submitted to the competition with its old title, "The Only Family I Need".

Speculative fiction

Two Lines

In a future Ireland where parenthood is licensed and compulsory fertility chips are supposed to make unapproved pregnancy impossible, teenager Aoibhe discovers she is pregnant. As she and Cillian search for answers beyond the government-controlled systems surrounding them, Aoibhe must decide how far she will go to protect a baby that was never meant to exist.

Short fiction · Work in progress

The Second Call

When a road accident forces Father Francesco to choose between a grieving young woman and a scheduled funeral, he must confront the difference between performing his duty and answering a deeper call.