AHWA 2013 short story competition – Winner!

Yay! I won!

A few weeks ago, I found out that I’d won the 2013 Australian Horror Writers’ Association short fiction competition with my short story “Darker”.

Today… I received the trophy. I thought you might like to see it, so here it is!

Yay – I won!!!! Squee!

The judges couldn’t decide between my story and a story written by Alan Baxter, who by my reckoning is Australian horror-writing royalty. So I’m really chuffed that they decided to award us both first place. I’m equally chuffed because Alan is represented by the same literary agency as I am, so it’s like – GO TEAM!

This is my sixth win of a national short fiction competition and I’m grinning from ear to ear because every competition I enter is judged blind, including this one. Merit alone determines the result. Six wins tells me that my writing is being enjoyed by lots of different and various people, who all know their stuff, and that’s my goal as a writer so I’m muchly pleased. Thank you AHWA!!

Also, congratulations to the other writers who achieved a place in the competition – go you!!

The full results are below:

SHORT FICTION CATEGORY

WINNERS:
Zena Shapter “Darker”
Alan Baxter “It’s Always the Children Who Suffer”

HONOURABLE MENTIONS:
Cassandra Newman “Divorce Granted”
Ron Schroer “Lustbader”
Shaun Taylor “Open Windows, Closed Doors”
Noel Osualdini “Skin”
Sam Howard “Wee Willie Winkie”

FLASH FICTION CATEGORY

WINNER:
Tim Hawken “Moonlight Sonata”

HONOURABLE MENTIONS:
Noel Osualdini “Night Escape”
Mark Farrugia “Palatable”
Mike Pieloor “The Itch”
Alan Baxter “Under a Wing and a Prayer”

The three winning stories will be published in Australia’s leading horror fiction magazine Midnight Echo, so you’ll be able to read my story then. I’ll let you know when it comes out!

In the meantime, squee… yay… grin!!! I love my new trophy 🙂