Creative Writing Winners 2023
Shortlisted Poetry and Short Fiction works from the 2023 Prize are published in the Creative Writing Anthology 2024.
Poetry – Joan García Viltró
The Swimmers: 24th November
Zoë Brigley, Chair of the Poetry jury, noted: “The poem is complex, daring formally and thematically, and without easy answers. It innovates on the page and its content is relevant to the present moment. There is ambiguity, and perhaps the best poems don’t have to hammer home a point, but instead ask questions.”
Short Fiction – Lucy Campbell
Mr Street
Dr Marl’ene Edwin, Chair of the Short Fiction jury, commented, “Mr Street is framed in a unique way. It is fantastically written: the voice is brilliant and the story has a high concept which is delivered well. The opening sequence has the reader anticipating a particular direction for the story which is never realised.”
Shortlisted Writers 2023
Poetry
AJ Baumel – Watching Reruns
Armando Ledezma – Ocean Pastoral with Bedroom
Caroline Bracken – Reflective Fragments Coated with a Thin Layer of Metal
Caroline Druitt – When I was young they found a bat inside me
Christian Ward – The Anxiety of House Keys
Christopher M James – Traces
Clayton Longstaff – Once, It Happened a Boy
Diepreye – May I Not Return the Same Way I Came
Emjay – What Insects Taught Me About My Mother
Fay Dillof – Blossoms
Gavin Ritchie – A Short History of Coat-Giving
Georgia Conlon – Vitrine
Helen Scadding – Gift
HLR – Inventory: Things You’ll Find When She Dies
Ivy Raff – Prospect Park with My Mother During an Ectopic Pregnancy
Jane Burn – Mother Crow, Mother Bee, Mother Stone, Mother Sky, Mother Tree
Jed Myers – Anyone’s Dust
Julie Manning – Black-house Fire
Karl Michael Iglesias – Left The Hotel That Fema Stopped Paying For On Friday
Kathryn Bevis – Song o’ the River Itchen
Kitty Martin – Pass
Leah Larwood – The Cake MixtureLesley Sharpe – Grasse, Provence
Liz Houchin – If My Mother had a Retrospective at the V&A
Lucie Richter-Mahr – Codex Dream
Mara Adamitz Scrupe – a history of birds of prey/ she said
Maya Caspari – Instructions for Writing to Your Sister
Pervin Saket – Word Problems for Ten Marks Each
Rachel Goodman – Sunfrail
Róisín Leggett Bohan – 13 ways of looking at ghosts
Sophia Rubina Charalambous – Amplified Heart / Missing
Stephanie Green – Lilias
Sujatha Menon – Reticulum
Sunnah Khan – Portrait of My Father As A Postman
Suzanna Fitzpatrick – Inbox
Vasiliki Albedo – From Its Insides a Gift
Wes Lee – Fingerprint
Will Kemp – In praise of dungbeetles
Yesol Kim – Interview with Dolores Schiller
Short Fiction
Alexandria Peary – Betty Crocker Directs the Test Kitchen to Submerge
Amanda Hildebrandt – Saltbush
Aneeta Sundararaj – Say Hello To Yama
Cheryl Skory Suma – Will You DSM Me?
Chiedza Mhondoro – Two Children with a Book
David Hudson – The Daily Walk
David Landau – SWEETHEART
David Wildsmith – Does the Wind Blow Colder at Home
Jayne Stead – Mother Love
Jekwu Anyaegbuna – CERTIFICATE OF INFERTILITY
Josey Diaz – Taking Out the Trash
Kathleen Furin – Covenants Considered
Ntendeni Luvhengo – The Footsteps of my Dead Mother
Pernille AEgidius Dake – In the Face Of(f)
Sean O’Leary – Some Life, This
Sharon Wahl – Helen Jo
Sofie De Smyter – unleashed
Tarryn Meaker – Doreen’s Last Day
Tracey Montague – Birdie
Images by Anne-Laure Etienne.