Oh my gosh, I have been so busy lately! Not only have I been preparing for my upcoming launch of When Dark Roots Hunt (pre-orders are welcome over here!), and doing copy edits for another new release (soon to be announced!), but I’ve been organising and judging the 2023 Northern Beaches Writers’ Competition.
What a competition! There were so many good entries from all across Australia – New South Wales, Western Australia, Victoria, South Australia, the ACT, and Queensland – all words and images inspired by the theme of ‘rain’.
Five judges read each entry blindly, including myself; and on our shortlist we had a wide range of fiction (contemporary, fantasy and sci fi), life story, non-fiction, and poetry – all of varying lengths. ‘An Umbrella of Rain’ was only 228 words and ‘Rain Twirling’ was only 491 words; whereas at the upper end of the scale, ‘Moving On’ was 2497 words. But no matter what the length, all of these entries captured our imaginations and hearts.
The competition also captured the hearts of entrants, and I received a lovely email from one of them:
Dear Zena,
Really chuffed to have got this far. Would like to thank you for providing a well-run legitimate competition for aspiring writers such as myself.
Unfortunately, many so called competitions are only a ruse to get email addresses to be bombarded with writing product and seminars that you can’t afford to attend.
The winning entries were worthy of their status. My favourite story was Rains over the Iron Bark.
Thanks once again and will have another shot next year.
Kindest regards
Douglas Wroe
Thank you so much, Douglas, for your kind words! This is exactly why I wanted to start the competition. It’s so important for us writers to have opportunities to share our work. I know this as a writer myself, who has both entered competitions without being shortlisted, and entered others to win – over a dozen national writing competitions to date! When we write, we open our hearts to the world, and it can be disappointing if readers don’t listen to what our hearts have to say.
It can also be utterly magnificent when readers connect with what we’re expressing. Which is why I’d like to encourage all the entrants not shortlisted to keep writing and keep trying to connect with others through your words. If in this case our judges didn’t connect with your entry, perhaps they will connect with the one you write for next year’s competition!
In the meantime, the winning stories are FREE to read over here, composed by Alison Clark (QLD), Alison Gibbs (NSW) and Nick Slessor (Northern Beaches, NSW). Congratulations, everyone!
Thank you to the Northern Beaches Writers’ Group (especially Azmeena, Mandy, Mark & Sue) for supporting this ‘Art & Words Project’ as well as myself, also proudly supported by the Northern Beaches Council.
Together, we will promote inclusive creativity across the world!
