Adjudicator Ewan Craig was pleased to hand Charlotte Wilson the Janet Barclay Cup for humorous writing. I think it was the first time that any of us had heard a story told from the viewpoint of a bar of soap and ‘The Downfall of Roger Gallet’ intrigued us to the end.
Ewan had obviously put a great deal of thought into his general comments and his assessment of the individual entries. As these included poetry, short stories and a playlet, it had been difficult for him to choose between them. Charles came second with ‘The Dating Agency’, set in Barnsley and told from the point of view of a men’s underwear salesman disconcerted to find himself matched with a lady plumber. Susan came third, but we will have to wait until the next meeting to hear her entry and those of the other members who took part in the competition.
We were happy to welcome back Suzanne Stirke to adjudicate our short story competition. It was obvious as she gave her comments on each entry that Suzanne had given a great deal of thought to them and her constructive criticism was welcomed by their authors as well as being very interesting for everyone else present at the meeting.
The winner was Maggie Cobbett with a story called ‘It’s Better to Play Safe’ about a tourist couple exploring the macabre side of New Orleans. Lotte Wilson took second place with Sheila Whitfield third. There was time after the mid-meeting break for all three winners to read their stories, after which we thanked Suzanne for her hard work on our behalf.
We shall look forward to hearing the remaining entries at our open manuscripts meeting in a fortnight’s time.
This competition is always, as the name would suggest, for writing with an historical theme and this year it was the turn of fiction.
Our adjudicator, Suzanne Stirke, began by explaining that, when first drawn to pick up her pen, she had gone on a short writing course at Darlington 6th Form College. From there, she was encouraged to do a University Master’s course in Creative Writing as a mature student. Since then she has written and self-published two books set around Bedale, one about a particular building set in the early 1800s and the other about the resolution of a mystery surrounding that building set in modern times. She is now working on a third book about a local woman called Dorothy Patterson.
Suzanne went on to say what she was looking for in a short story:
- A beginning, middle and an end
- Must be concise
- No irrelevant detail (in a short story)
- Assume that the reader knows nothing
- Either 3rd person or 1st person narrative (she didn’t mention the rarer 2nd person narrative form)
- Not too many characters
- A good ending.
Turning to the seven entries Suzanne then made her comments on each. The entries were:
- ‘A Bedtime Story’ – Lotte Wilson – a grandfather tells two young boys a bedtime story based on his own memories
- ‘Departure and Arrival’ – Joe Peters – a young woman begins to travel the world
- ‘Great Aunt Tillie’ – Sheila Whitfield – June is sorting out belongings after the death of her husband
- ‘Private Tom Brownlea’ – Charles Lubelski – a story about a reluctant recruit in the First World War
- ‘The Big Decision’ – Peter Page – a young Irishman from the Dingle Peninsula decides to emigrate to America around 1900
- ‘The Fine Aroma of Coffee’ – Maggie Cobbett – a ghost story set in the York Castle Museum
- ‘The Star of the Sea’ – Susan Perkins – a story about a haunted pub beside the sea in Northern England.
Suzanne then announced the winners as follows
- Joint Second – Peter Page with ‘The Big Decision’ and Maggie Cobbett with ‘The Fine Aroma of Coffee’
- First – Lotte Wilson with ‘A Bedtime Story’
Suzanne presented Lotte with the trophy.
After the break, the remaining entries were paired with their authors and accompanied by discussion before Susan invited Lotte and Peter to read their stories.
Suzanne had brought along copies of both her published books for members to examine and there was just time for her to read the blurbs from the backs before the meeting closed with thanks being expressed to her for a much appreciated adjudication.
Due to circumstances beyond our control, Suzanne Stirke’s adjudication of the ‘Blast from the Past’ competition will now take place on Wednesday, 17th April.
We welcomed Mary-Jane Holmes as our adjudicator this year. She had obviously put a great deal of thought into the task and did a very thorough job. Before announcing her decision, she read out each of the poems submitted and gave a detailed critique. A written version was also attached to each entry for the poet to peruse at leisure later on.
Charlotte Wilson (pictured above receiving the trophy from Mary-Jane) came first with ‘Pond Life’. Sheila Whitfield was in second place with ‘Inland Dreams’ and Kate Swann came third with ‘On the Scales for Grandad’. Mary-Jane congratulated everyone who had entered the competition. With a high standard overall, the great variety of themes and styles had made choosing the winners difficult.
After the adjudication, Mary-Jane answered questions about her own work and poetry in general.
From her bio: Mary-Jane Holmes wanders and writes in the wilds of Upper Teesdale. She has garnered many awards including winning the Bridport Poetry prize, the Writer’s Digest poetry competition, the Live Canon Poetry Pamphlet Prize, Bath Novella-in-Flash Prize, , Martin Starkie, Dromineer, Reflex Fiction and Mslexia Flash prize as well as the Bedford Poetry competition. She has been shortlisted for the Beverley International Prize for Literature and longlisted for the UK National Poetry Prize twice. Mary-Jane’s poetry collection Heliotrope with Matches and Magnifying Glass is published by Pindrop Press. Her pamphlet Dihedral is published by Live Canon Press and her novella Don’t Tell the Bees, is published by AdHoc Fiction. Her Lockdown poem ‘Letter from Baldersdale’ joins 20 other poems in the National Poetry Archive on their 20th anniversary. Her collection of Flash Fiction was published by V press in 2021 and was shortlisted for the Eyelands Literary prize in 2023.
Her work appears in a variety of publications including Aesthetica. Magma, Modern Poetry in Translation, Mslexia, The Lonely Crowd, Prole The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, and in anthologies including Best Small Fictions 2014/16/18/20 and Best Microfictions 2020.
She has an MA (Distinction) in Creative Writing from Kellogg College, Oxford and has been awarded an Arts and Humanities Research Council studentship to complete a PhD in poetry and translation at Newcastle University. UK.
New Collection of Short Fiction: Set a Crow to Catch a Crow
Bill Hilton began by saying how much he had enjoyed reading all the entries, (which had not always been his experience as an adjudicator) and was then invited to describe his personal connections with writing as a profession. After studying for a degree in English and Music, he taught English for 6 years before starting his own business as a professional advertising copywriter for large firms. That led to branching out into training courses in writing for big businesses, so that they would be able to produce their own copy. After going back to university to do an M.A. in English, Bill turned his focus onto producing piano books and tutorials for YouTube.
When considering a piece of writing, Bill looks for the following:
1) Would he like to read more by this author?
2) Does the author display confidence in him//herself and the reader/audience?
3) Does the writing exhibit control of the structure of the piece, both overall and at sentence level?
4) An interesting subject and, particularly, an interesting title.
In random order, the entries for the competition were:
‘Family History’ by Joe Peters
‘Buried Treasure: Sutton Hoo’ by Charlotte Wilson
‘Oppenheimer: The film’ by Susan Perkins
‘In the British Museum’ by Solvig Choi
‘There is nothing like a Dame’ by Maggie Cobbett
‘Kynista’s victory at Olympia: the case of the missing statues’ by Carol Mayer
‘Deal and ideals in art’ by Sheila Whitfield
‘Next time in Venice’ by Chrissie Russell’
The photo above shows Bill Hilton presenting the cup to Solvig Choi, who had only just handed it back in after her win the last time this competition came around. Carol Mayer and Charlotte Wilson tied for second place.
Well done everyone who took part!
Joe Peters took great pleasure in presenting the new ‘Writing for Children’ trophy to Ros Swaney. The competition was inaugurated in honour of Joe’s late wife Daphne, the founder of Ripon Writers’ Group, and you can find an account of the adjudication by Claire Thompson by scrolling back to mid-July.
Competitions Secretary Susan Perkins reminded us that Claire had awarded ‘Dusty the Cupboard Monster’ first place as the story most likely in her experience to be chosen by children visiting the library. An accolade indeed!
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