Our distinguished guest judge Barbara Turner-Vesselago (creator and teacher of Freefall Writing) has finished the onerous task of judging the 1002 Nights Short Story Writing Competition. We received a goodly number of entries from UK, Canada and Australia.
First prize was awarded to Bernie Brooks (UK) for his story The Maiden, The Caliph, his Lover and their Dream.
The runners up prize was jointly awarded to : Anna Gersman (The Red Pearl) from Canada and Joan Kerr (The Seven Brothers) from Australia
All three winning stories are on this website under 1002 Nights. We are currently exploring options for the publication of a wider selection of the entries. Bernie’s story was featured at the Gala Performance in Chepstow on Saturday 11th February. After judge Barbara Turner-Vesselago had presented him with the first prize of £500, Bernie said:
Winning first prize in the 1002 Nights competition was for me both affirming and a challenge. Affirming because it was clear to me that I had something worth saying to other people and a challenge because it demands me taking myself seriously as a writer. I’d like to thank Geoff Mead – both the spirit and the organiser – of the competition for such an inspiring and inspired idea. I am going to use the prize money to do a subscription Freefall course and some short writing workshops – poetry and fiction.
Thank you to everyone who wrote stories – you are a wonderfully creative bunch – and especially to Barbara for taking time out to judge the competition.
Centre for Narrative Leadership 