Theme: Numbers
Poetry Judge: Stephen Daniels
Poetry winner:
Sarah Hemings – Vestry
Poetry runners-up:
Phil Kirby – Gathering
David Hale – Safety in Numbers
David Hale – Five Minutes
Poetry commended:
Michael Newman – Playing the Game
Phil Kirby – Scanner
Roger Hale –The Golden Ratio
Prose Judge: Amanda Reynolds
Prose winner:
Julie Carthy – Coping by Numbers
Prose runners-up:
Mandy Robotham – Numbers not required
Catherine Brennan – Private Number
Liz Carew – The Weigh-In
Prose commended:
Sophie Flynn – Countdown to the Kiss
Tom Ware– The Perfect 10
Joanna Campbell – Winter Starlings
For more about our 2019 winners and judges go to our About page
Theme: East Meets West
Poetry Judge: Anna Saunders
Poetry winner:
David Hale – Cranes Flying
Poetry runners-up:
Catherine Baker – Waiting for the Boat
Derek Healy – Love’s Convergence
Marilyn Timms – Public School – Private Hell
Poetry commended:
Frances March
Samantha Pearce
Johnny Porter
Prose Judge: Kim Feet
Prose winner:
Emma Kernahan – The Locals
Prose runners-up:
Lynda Fowke – The Shawl
Iris Anne Lewis – Call me Shadi, Muna, Nasima
Marilyn Timms – Bride Price
Prose commended:
Ali Bacon
Joanna Campbell
Kathy O’Grady
For more about our 2018 winners and judges go to our About page
Theme: Who Do We Think We Are?
Poetry Judge: Roy McFarlane
Poetry Winner:
Frances March – 1956: Sheltered
Poetry Runners up:
Julie Wiltshire – I am a Memorial to the Tortured Soul
Belinda Rimmer – Scoot
Liz Carew – Ferr’Agosto Day
Irene Anne Lewis – Matryoshka
Jennie Farley – Changes
Prose Judge: Lania Knight
Prose Winner:
Nastasya Parker – The Maze
Prose Runners up:
Judith Green – The day is marked; the minutes taken, captured, fact to fiction; fact …
Jeff Taylor – Stories from a Geriatric Ward
Val Ormrod – This Day, This Day
Jim Moeller – Benefits
Cindy Moss – Deep Breath
For more about our 2017 winners and judges go to our About page
Theme: ‘Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness’
Poetry Judge: Phil Kirby
Poetry Winner:
Gill Garrett – The Irish Girls 1968
Poetry Runners up:
Lania Knight – Virgil Hits the Trail
Derek Healy – Giving Away
Judith van Dijkhuizen – How to Enjoy Learning the Piano
Julie Allan – Landscape. Or portrait.
Michael Newman – Tree Talk
Shauna Robertson – His Own North
Prose Judge: Eugene Lambert
Prose Winner:
Alex Clark – Shoals
Prose Runners up:
Christine Griffin – Homecoming
Michael Hurst – A Hundred and Three Miles
Graham Bruce Fletcher – X47B
Christine Griffin – An Album of Postcards
Theme: Crossroads
Poetry Judge: Angela France
Poetry Winner:
Judith van Dijkhuizen – Bridge House
Poetry Runners up:
Anna Saunders – Between Dog and Wolf
Iris Lewis – Woodland Burial
Dominic James – North Bound Train
Chris Hemingway – A Heritage Day trip on the Hellhound Bus
Toni Wilde – Suspicion
David Ashbee – The Bird Table
Prose Judge: Sophie Livingston
Prose Winner:
Philip Douch – Drive
Prose Runners up:
Rick Vick – Seeing
John Holland – Strange Fruit – An Imagining
J R Moeller – Taking Tea with the Natives
Gill Garrett – Epiphany
Theme: Brave New World
Poetry Judge: David Clarke
Poetry Winner:
Sheila Spence – Brave New Person
Poetry Runners up:
Judi Marsh – They are left books …
Derek Healy – New Ways to War, 1914
Allegra Etheridge/Russell Burgess – Six Gig of RAM
Guy Hunter – Special Delivery
Marianne Hellwig John – Inheritance
Jay Ramsay – Vision from Assisi
Prose Judge: Wilkie Martin
Prose Winner:
Iris Lewis – No Small Thing
Prose Runners up:
Christine Griffin – The City of Light
Gill Garrett – The Drop
Christine Godsell – The End . . . Or The Beginning
Sue Cross – The Tornado
Graham Fletcher – All Men Are Fools. And what makes them so is having beauty like what I have got. . .
Theme: Memory
Poetry Judge: Jennie Farley
Poetry Winner:
Gill Garrett – Retrospect
Poetry Runners up:
Eley Furrell – Swarf
Miki Byrne – Coal Thieves
Cedric Pickin – Pickin
Derek Healy – Walking Leckhampton
Judith van Dijkhuizen – Lotti
Malcolm Williams – Grandmother
Prose Judge: Jennifer Cryer
Prose Winner:
Pauline Kiernan – The Fat Man at The Bar
Prose Runners up:
Marilyn Timms – Amitriptylene revisited
John Holland – The Song
Jan Petrie – Memento Mori
Wendy Campbell – I wish