2017

Our winner for 2017 was, for the second time, is Kit Scriven of Kyneton, VIC, for ‘He cannot dream a river‘. Kit won $1500 and his story was published in ‘Island’ magazine.

An elderly man quietly tends his dying wife, while his robust imagination recalls and directs her in one dream world after another. Right from the start, this story conjures a bold and unsettling vision of love’s creative power at the end of a long life.

Runners-up were ‘The bathers‘ by Rebecca Slater of Drummoyne, NSW, and ‘Going it alone’ by Sue Hurley of Vaucluse, NSW.

Finding friendship beyond the racial edge that cleaves their small community, two teenage girls journey together into the bush to swim in a cool creek as they explore a growing attraction for each other in The Bathers, a beautifully poised story that flares with longing and crackles with life.

With the emotional force of a novel, Going it Alone explores a young woman’s readings and misreadings of the human heart during her first serious romance.

Congratulations to Kit, Rebecca and Sue, and a big thank you to judges Geordie Williamson, D’Arcy Randall and Craig Munro.