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Graham Houghton – Aldgate, SA - The Mad Dog and the Figs Connie Tout-Smith – Shoalhaven Heads, NSW - A Young Man Running Don Jordon – St Kilda, VIC - Death of a Yuppie J.Munyard – Bawley Point, NSW - Hive Alison Quigley – Buderim, QLD - The Correction |
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Jenny James – Hurlstone Park, NSW - Waiting for Katerina Jane Greenwood – Chapel Hill, QLD - Album: a story in photographs Brennan O'Shea – West Beach, SA - In The Court of Public Opinion Penny Gibson – Hampton, VIC - Nausea in D Minor |
JUDGE'S COMMENT :The
winning story, Kafka's House, is a sophisticated and assured
short fiction which stood out from the large number of very good
stories which were submitted to this year's Shoalhaven Literary
Award.
The overall number of stories submitted was large and the quality
was unusually high for competitions of this type. All in all,
there are twenty stories which have been especially selected for
commendation of some kind: one winner, five secondary prizes,
five highly commended stories and 4 commended stories. There were
many other good stories which did not make it to this long short
list.
Many of the stories submitted were unusual or intriguing, with
diverse and confident voices from a notably wide range of cultures
which made judging difficult, though enjoyable. The less successful
stories submitted were often marred by being overwritten (overgilded
with adjectives etc), characterised by various forms of literary
laziness (predictable plot, clichéd expression) or
with unconvincing characterisation. Fortunately for the state
of Australia writing these were few - though it did make the judging
difficult.
Congratulations to all the writers of the stories, and to the
organisers of such a successful competition.
MAIN JUDGE : Chris Mansell - with long experience in writing, both poetry & fiction, she has written five books of poetry and a number of other smaller collections. Recent collections from Chris include The Fickle Brat (text + audio CD) (Interactive Digital) and a chapbook, Stalking the Rainbow. Her new Mortifications & Lies will be published in 2005 by Kardoorair Press. Her latest venture is a small poetry press called PressPress .
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SLA-result