Saturday, December 08, 2012

Honours shared in October Global Short Story Competition



Judge Fiona Cooper has selected her winners for the October Global Short Story Competition and, in an unusual move, found herself unable to separate two top quality stories. That means we are announcing joint winners and splitting the £125 prize money between the authors.
Explaining her decision, Fiona says: “There are two winners this month since the qualities of both stories are so different and excellent in their own way. Beautiful writing and reflection and a style begging to develop a novel on one hand; on the other a story so stark it reads like an apocalyptic vision.”

One of the winners is Passing Away by Paul Freeman, of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, of which Fiona says: “The concept of this story has an echo of both George Orwell and Auberon Waugh at their bleak incisive best. In our current political climate where even the doom laden Cassandra would appear quite jolly, this story takes materialist policy to an inevitable and hideous conclusion. The last line is a spine chilling stroke of genius.”

The other joint winner is Scarred by Charlotte Soares, of Richmond, Surrey, England, of which Fiona says: “The language in this piece is superb, flowing and poetic and I just wanted to read more. This is a style which uses alliteration, concealed rhyme and rhythm and imagery in a rich and assured manner. To write like this without overdoing it, or losing the thread of the story is remarkable, Wonderful!“

The writers on the shortlist (from five countries) are:

June Hubatsek, New York City area, United States,
Jeff Taylor, Hamilton, New Zealand
Bob Bishop, Walsham, England
Matt Wilce, Tokyo, Japan
Anna Liska, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
James Robinson, Howden, England

Winning stories will be posted on www.globalshortstories.net and www.globalwriters.net
You can enter the December competition at www.globalshortstories.net The competition is run by Certys Ltd, based in Darlington in North East England

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