The BEST & BRIGHTEST is a creative writing competition for student and graduate authors; a competition that isn’t just limited to the members of a single University’s Students’ Union, but one which is open to students and graduates from across the United Kingdom, and beyond! If you want to get your work out there, gain some real far-and-wide recognition for your talents in creative writing, and garner some decent prize money, then the BEST & BRIGHTEST competition exists to launch you onwards to fame, acclaim, and those sales that we all know can be achieved, up there among the stars! In 2012’s BEST & BRIGHTEST Competition, picking out the best student and graduate authors among the blazing cosmos of literary talent that Universities across the World had to offer was a real challenge- but the brightest stars shone through with the most brilliant, intense and vivid entries of all. Here, their short stories have been gathered together into our BEST & BRIGHTEST 2012 Anthology. Which one of these stellar candidates will win the cash prize, and be awarded the title of this year’s BEST & BRIGHTEST?