Queenstown Writers Festival is delighted to now publish the winning stories in this year’s inaugural short story competition and give the writers a chance to share their work with our audience. Go to the competition page for a full list of place-getters and highly commended, judges’ comments and links to the top three stories in each category.
One of the purposes of the festival is to provide opportunities for writers. Our short story competition aimed to help new and existing writers in Otago and Southland develop their writing and showcase new work.
When launching this year’s competition we really didn’t know what to expect. We recruited our wonderful judges, drafted up guidelines, enlisted the support of local teachers, and waited for entries to come in.
We were delighted to receive over 100 entries in the various categories and thanks go to all of those who entered. Without you there would be no competition.
Plenty of people think about entering short story competitions but somehow don’t get around to putting pen to paper. One of the consistent themes from our guest writers at the festival was the need to show discipline in the art of writing, to sit down each day and to write. That is how they have forged careers and won awards. No writer gets published just by thinking about writing a story. Action speaks louder than words! So well done to each of you who took the time to create a short story for others to enjoy.
In the primary school category, judge Jane Bloomfield told us that six stories really jumped out at her due to their originality, imagination, well-realised imagery, great humour (in some cases) and strong grasp on the craft of writing.
The judge of the secondary school stories, Iona Winter noted that the shortlisted stories were of the less-is-more variety in that they ‘showed’ but didn’t necessarily ‘tell’ the whole story. Iona read what she described as complete stories with hooks that left her wondering or wanting more. I think we can all love stories like that.
Dr Maxine Alterio was impressed by the quality of the writing and the diverse themes in the open section of the competition.
We owe a great deal of gratitude to our judges and appreciate their work. Thanks also to Patagonia Chocolates for supporting the competition. Congratulations to our winners, and thank you again to all entrants. We hope you enjoyed writing your stories. We hope to see you back entering future competitions in 2021 and beyond.
So start writing now!
