In July 2008 we launched a Tall Tales and Short Stories competition. The competition closed on 15th October 2008. We asked for your original, unpublished short stories of between 3000 and 5000 words. No theme or specific subject –we simply invited you to entertain us! There was a £5 entry fee per story. Prize for the winning entry was the grand sum of £350! One runner received £150.
The response was as enthusiastic as we could have hoped for, with entries flooding in from all around the world. We hadn’t made life easy for you, asking only that your stories be “entertaining.” The resulting tales covered almost every genre of fiction with ghost stories, comedies, mystery, murder and mayhem. The writers themselves were a ranged from our youngest entrant aged twelve and our most senior aged ninety one!
Every entry was read (and enjoyed) and there was much discussion about the final choices. A few people asked for feedback on their stories, but we’re afraid with so many entries it simply wasn’t possible to give detailed feedback – and beside, we’re not pretending to be experts in the art of short stories! From our point of view, the standard of the entries was high and we would encourage anyone who entered our competition to re-read their stories and consider entering them in other competitions.
“Tea with the Colonel” by Derrick Yeomans
wins the £350 prize (and a printed certificate)
The winning entry can be downloaded/viewed as a PDF file by clicking the icon on the left. It it supplied as a bitmap rather than text to protect the story from copyright infringement as best we can!
“Perfecting Miss Right” by Cherry Lawton
wins the £150 prize (and a printed certificate)
The following stories were judged as Highly Commended; Each received a printed certificate. If you entered and don’t find your name here, please don’t feel too downhearted – there were many entries!
“A Literary Affair” by D Patterson
“Baron Trifle Von Trifle! In an adventure with the Turkish Mafia” by Paoula Sobanda
“Eggs for 113” by Sarah McEvoy
“Jack's Way” by June Crowe
“Two Princes of Pier 39” by Celeste Goschen
“The Bournemouth Hamlet” by Kerry Hood
“Unique Spelling Proposition” by Nigel Macarthur
“Homecoming” by Valerie Knight
“The Seduction Plot” by R Nicholson-Morton (Stuart K Morton)
“This is Your Life” by Trevor Johnson
“Mrs Piccola's Hat” by Clare Goubin
“The Music of Silk” by Mary Russell
“Making Choices” by Helen Meikle
“Plenty Fish to be hooked” by Nanda Pethiyagoda
“The League of Grumpy Old Bastards” by Jacqueline Winn
“Syd the Fella” by Bruce Harris
“The Deadly Semicircle” by Desmond Rice
“Chips” by Max Mowbray
“Blackbeard's Ghost” by D M Lea
“A Goldilocks Weekend” by Douglas Bruton
“The Questers” by Brian O'Leary
Thank you to everyone who entered the competition and we wish you all every success with your future writing endeavors!
Rules and conditions of the competition are still available to download below.
