Story Competition winners... (November 02, 2009)
To celebrate their 30th birthday the Royston Writers' circle held a very short story competition as part of the Royston Arts Festival. Entrants were asked to write a complete story that fitted on one side of a standard postcard. First prizes of £25 each were made by the Royston Arts Festival. Click here to read the winning entries.
The entries were broken into 3 categories, under 11s, 12-18 and over 18s. Chairman of the RWC, Julie Dore, said “the entries were amazing with lots of imagination and clever story telling. It was interesting that the children's entries were very varied and many had fantasy element whereas the adults were mainly concerned with death, murder or romance! It was great that some schools really supported and encouraged pupils to have a go, especially The Greenaway School who put a room aside with postcards for their students. Writing is a great way to expand your imagination and is a lot of fun. There's obviously quite a literary talent in Royston and we enjoyed reading the entries as much as the entrants enjoyed writing them.”
Local novelist Sarah Harrison was the judge and in judging the entries Sarah explained that what she was looking for was a real sense of story and a distinctive voice and that this, for her, was more important than the quality of the writing. In the under 11s the winner was Jessica Davies with The Best Week Since Mum Left and the runner up was Sakara Pritchard who wrote The Story of Miss Piggy who wanted to go shopping but ended up in the Laundrette. Sarah said Jessica had shown good identification with a real situation that a reader can identify with and she liked Miss Piggy's vanity, and her ad-hoc use of the plastic bags!
Abigail Morris came first in the 12-18 group with her story The Lair, a dark, droll and wonderfully described tale. Second was In The Loft written by Charlotte Goldspring which was one of the few to include dialogue. The winner in the over 18 group was Shirley Clark with The Last Post which Sarah described as “touching and topical with a clever use of the prescribed space” whereas runner up A Pint of Bitter by Gillian Shepheard was a “chilling little story with a really good twist”.
Julie would like to thank Sarah for her time and insights, the members of the writer's circle who helped and the support and sponsorship from the Royston Arts Festival committee but most of all for all for those who took part and made it a brilliant 30th birthday party.
The wining entries can be read in full on the Royston Writers Circle and the Royston Arts Festival websites. Do you agree with Sarah's views? Do you think you can do better? If so why not find out more about the Royston Writers' Circle, a friendly group who meet once a month in the Priory Community Centre to write for fun and enjoyment.
Email RoystonWriters@yahoo.co.uk
http://www.roystonwriterscircle.co.uk/ Click here to return to the News page
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