Ted Jones Short Story Competition Results
Results evening at Slough Writers
This evening marked the presentation of the results of this year’s Ted Jones Short Story competition, presented by our guest judge David Bullock.
David provided all those who entered with extensive feedback on their efforts and congratulated everyone both for taking part and for the quality of their entries.
Detailed feedback on individual stories will be circulated independently of these minutes. David made a couple of overall points. First, he encouraged writers to ‘go to town’ on their descriptive prose to give readers a sense of time and place in the narratives. Second, he suggested that time devoted to editing and correcting manuscripts was always well spent, since mistakes in spelling and grammar invariably tended to ‘throw’ readers and led to a loss of confidence in stories.
The Ted Jones trophy
The winner of the competition was Lin, with her story, The Final. David was so impressed and moved by this story that he read it three times! Unfortunately, Lin was indisposed on the night and so could neither accept the praise lavished on her by the judge or read out her winning piece. This pleasure awaits the group at the start of next term.
Second was Mike R, with his story, Such is Death. This was a tale of revenge served cold. A father visits the man whom he holds responsible for his son’s death at the battle of the Somme.
Third was Beth with her story, The Verdict. This focused on the trial and execution of Anne Boleyn, as seen through the eyes of the poet Thomas Wyatt.
Highly commended was Terry’s story, Does My Bum Look Big In This? This was a darkly comic tale of goings on at an AmDram panto and revelations about the murky past of a member of the cast.
Terry once again thanked David for the extent and quality of his feedback before bringing the meeting to a close at 9.30 pm.
From left to right: Lin Hurdwell (inset, who was unable to attend, first place), Terry Adlam (commended), Beth Rogers (third place),
Michael Ranes (second place), and judge David Bullock.
Epilogue - Lin (the next week) finally gets to lift the Ted Jones Short Story Competition trophy.