1000 word challenge

Winners

‘Strangers’

Our ‘Strangers’ theme proved really popular and we enjoyed reading your thought-provoking, entertaining and, as always, incredibly diverse stories. You told us about commuters thrown together, spouses growing apart, and even street evangelists bringing strangers to Jesus by surprisingly violent means!

We met criminals, schoolchildren and nervous jobseekers. And we were reminded that sharing a cigarette is often a great way into an unexpected conversation.

Choosing the winners was especially difficult this time and there are four fantastic stories we really wanted to share with you.

Sophie Holland’s ‘Next of Kin’ is hopeful, uplifting and timely. Bringing together two almost-strangers in a hospital waiting room, we were impressed by Sophie’s deftly drawn characters. We hope you’ll enjoy meeting them as much as we did. We’re delighted to give Sophie our first prize of £150.

Richard Smith’s ‘My Ruth’ charts the tragedy of a long-married couple becoming estranged. Richard skilfully shows how it’s possible for husband and wife to never really have known each other and his narrator, Dan, has a strong and memorable voice. Richard’s tale has a pleasing ambiguity and is the worthy winner of our £75 second prize.

We’ve awarded two third prizes this time, to two very different stories. We really wanted you to read both Julia Graves’ ‘Patient 52’ and ‘The Rise and Fall of Midnight Park’ by Daniel Smyth. Julia’s story of a lonely young woman visiting an elderly stranger in hospital really moved us, while Daniel’s unique theme response questions whether fame and fortune are all they’re cracked up to be. We haven’t awarded joint prizes for quite a while but we simply couldn’t separate these two impressive stories. Congratulations to Julia and Daniel on your £50 third prizes.

Normally at this point in the judges’ report, we’d be encouraging you to enter our next competition. For now, we’ll simply say that, after sending your feedback over the next month, it’s time for us to take a break from 1000 word challenge. As the competition has grown over the last four and a bit years, we’ve struggled to find time for our own writing. So, we’re stepping back for a short while to focus on putting pen to paper for ourselves.

The competition has exceeded our expectations in every way. We never expected to read stories from so many different people and places, or for teachers to set 1000 word challenge entry as homework. And we’ve been overwhelmed by the support from the fabulous creative writing community – especially your generous contributions to our charity competition last year.

We will be back! And you’ll still find us on Facebook and Twitter in the meantime. So please keep in touch – if you join our mailing list you’ll be the first to hear our news. Keep writing!

Shortlist

‘Feeling the Love’ by Deb Bridges
‘Giving up’ by Cat Campbell
‘Patient 52’ by Julia Graves
‘Next of Kin’ by Sophie Holland
‘Touch’ by Jason Jackson
‘Culpepper’ by J J Jarman
‘Intimacies’ by Grace Royal
‘My Ruth’ by Richard Smith
‘The Rise and Fall of Midnight Park’ by Daniel Smyth
‘We Who Were Friends’ by Belinda Weir

Longlist

‘Resurrection Bud’ by Sharon Boyle
‘Feeling the Love’ by Deb Bridges
‘Giving up’ by Cat Campbell
‘Falling’ by Sophie Capeci
‘Constable Country’ by Barry Charman
‘Blood, Water, Other’ by Lucy Goldring
‘Patient 52’ by Julia Graves
‘Dilemmas’ by Sophie Hampton
‘Strangers in the Night’ by Holly A Harvey
‘A Place to Stay’ by Shannon Hayes
‘Fresh Meats’ by Joe Haywood
‘Next of Kin’ by Sophie Holland
‘Touch’ by Jason Jackson
‘Culpepper’ by J J Jarman
‘Davey Goes North’ by Chris Milner
‘Intimacies’ by Grace Royal
‘My Ruth’ by Richard Smith
‘The Rise and Fall of Midnight Park’ by Daniel Smyth
‘Sinner’s Prayer’ by Luke Tarassenko
‘Derailed’ by Kate Viggers
‘We Who Were Friends’ by Belinda Weir