{"id":5133,"date":"2012-10-17T09:39:20","date_gmt":"2012-10-16T23:39:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zenashapter.com\/blog\/?p=5133"},"modified":"2012-10-17T09:39:20","modified_gmt":"2012-10-16T23:39:20","slug":"the-hat-trick-reading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/the-hat-trick-reading\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hat Trick Reading"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As regular readers will know, I recently won the short story competition run by the Fellowship of Australian Writers Manly branch&#8230; three years in a row!<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Three years in a row.<\/p>\n<p>Three different judges.<\/p>\n<p>Three separate wins of \u2018first place\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Hat trick!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I know! I couldn&#8217;t believe it either. Who does that?<\/p>\n<p>Well, I guess I do! And on Saturday, I was at Warringah Mall Library reading aloud my winning story. Here are some photos of the event:<!--more--><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_5156\" style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/DSC05142.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5156\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5156 \" title=\"DSC05142\" src=\"http:\/\/www.zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/DSC05142.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-5156\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">And the winner is&#8230; President Jean Allas and ex-president Beatrice Yell announce the results.<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_5157\" style=\"width: 379px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/DSC051392.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5157\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5157 \" title=\"DSC051392\" src=\"http:\/\/www.zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/DSC051392.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"369\" height=\"340\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-5157\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">&#8230;yay! It&#8217;s me!<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_5159\" style=\"width: 385px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/DSC051372.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5159\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5159   \" title=\"DSC051372\" src=\"http:\/\/www.zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/DSC051372.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"375\" height=\"374\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-5159\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Listening to the judge&#8217;s comments before reading aloud my winning short story.<\/p><\/div>\n<blockquote><p>Judge&#8217;s comments: &#8220;A beautifully written, poignant narrative, involving a sick child and a mother&#8217;s unbearable angst.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I was very nervous, as I always am when reading aloud my writing to groups of people. But I know it&#8217;s good practice for when I&#8217;m, you know, a famous novelist! (Come on, publishers! What are you waiting for?! He he!)<\/p>\n<p>Although, the way some fans were congratulating me afterwards, it kinda felt as if I was already famous! Such is the soulful warmth fans can provide. Thank you, fans!<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_5160\" style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/DSC05147.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5160\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5160\" title=\"DSC05147\" src=\"http:\/\/www.zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/DSC05147.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-5160\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Me with my certificate \u2013 1st place!<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The <em>Manly Daily<\/em>, our awesome local newspaper with an incredible readership of over 150,000 people, is about to write a little piece about my win. How exciting is that?!! They may even publish an extract from my debut novel (you know, the one I&#8217;m trying to get published right now). So watch out for that later this week&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll also be sharing some of my tips and tricks on writing award-winning fiction at this year&#8217;s Emerging Writer&#8217;s Festival. So for anyone in Sydney on Saturday 3rd November \u2013 why not come along to the NSW Writers&#8217; Centre and join in the fun?<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_5134\" style=\"width: 250px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/NSWWC.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5134\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5134\" title=\"NSWWC\" src=\"http:\/\/www.zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/NSWWC.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"240\" height=\"98\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-5134\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Emerging Writers&#8217; Festival will be held on Saturday 3rd November. Don&#8217;t miss it!<\/p><\/div>\n<p>There&#8217;s a pre-festival interview with me, where I talk about discipline, distance and the dangers of being a copycat, <a title=\"EWF Interview\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nswwc.org.au\/2012\/10\/emerging-writers-festival-zena-shapter\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>. Follow the links to find details about the festival and how to purchase tickets. It&#8217;s going to be a fantastic day full of panels and discussions about writing, writers and literary life. I&#8217;ll be running one of the four creative writing bootcamps, between 3.10pm \u2013 4pm.<\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t miss out!<\/p>\n<p>If you can&#8217;t make it, why not follow the festival conversation on Twitter? Just use the hashtag: #EWFSYD<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, I&#8217;m off to add my first place certificate with the other certificates I&#8217;ve been collecting of late&#8230; so pretty!<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_5167\" style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/DSC05148.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5167\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5167\" title=\"DSC05148\" src=\"http:\/\/www.zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/DSC05148.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-5167\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Beautiful encouragement.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As regular readers will know, I recently won the short story competition run by the Fellowship of Australian Writers Manly branch&#8230; three years in a row! Three years in a row. Three different judges. Three separate wins of \u2018first place\u2019. Hat trick! I know! I couldn&#8217;t believe it either. Who\u2026<\/p>\n<p class=\"continue-reading-button\"> <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/the-hat-trick-reading\/\">Continue reading<i class=\"crycon-right-dir\"><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[138,197,203,211,216,395,459,690],"class_list":["post-5133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal-news","tag-creative-writing-bootcamp","tag-emerging-writers-festival","tag-ewf","tag-faw","tag-fellowship-of-australian-writers-manly","tag-manly-daily","tag-nsw-writers-centre","tag-warringah-mall-library"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5133\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}