Winners of short story competition celebrate their success

The winners of the Vaughan Centre for Lifelong Learning Short Story Competition 2015 have been announced.

David Marriott took the £300 first prize in the adult writers’ category. Isabella Guzy-Kirkden won the junior competition prize of £100. Both of their stories will be published in this year’s Competition Anthology, along with work by the five runners-up.

On 8 February 2016, David and Isabella were joined by their families and university staff at the Vaughan Centre for Lifelong Learning, where they were presented with their prize cheques, certificates of achievement, and copies of the Anthology,

The judges felt that David’s winning piece, titled Fracture, was “original, unsettling, lucidly written and evocative: a very strong piece of writing.”

Of Isabella’s story, Death and the Maiden, the judges said, “This is well-written and vividly described, with mature handling of pace, detail and especially tension.”

The short story competition was set up by David Wharton, Course Director for the Certificate of Higher Education in Creative Writing at the Vaughan Centre for Lifelong Learning, to enable unpublished writers in the region to showcase their talents and reach a wider audience.

David said of this year’s event: “It’s wonderful that we have this opportunity to contribute to inspiring and encouraging local writers. Once again, we were most impressed by the talent and imagination we saw throughout the whole range of entries. Congratulations to this year’s winners on having done so well against strong competition.”

Details of the part-time Certificate of Higher Education in Creative Writing can be found by visiting the course webpage