Clare Golding

Clare Golding, originally from Athens, Georgia, is an American immigrant living with her family in England. She’s a former Hollywood-ite, furniture salesperson, teacher, support technician, graduate student, and waitress. For the past eight years she’s worked at becoming a professional writer of young-adult fiction after over a decade of storytelling through film, as a history and ESL teacher, and later as a mother. Her writing is inspired by her family, friends, the Hogsback Writers, former students, and people who’ve wronged her. Since 2016 she’s been gathering steam on long and short lists alike but remains, as yet, pre-agented. She feels incredibly honoured to win the Yeovil Literary Prize.

Our judge Annie commented

“This excerpt demonstrated remarkable ability on a remarkable number of fronts, offering its readers a heroine who is simultaneously touching and engaging; a narrative voice that is authentic without sacrificing specificity; and a dramatic arc that ensures readers’ investment while also securing their belief. Despite the inherent difficulty of the expository task with a first-person narrator, information is deftly dispensed in these opening scenes. But while the elements of story-telling are admirably poised, what truly elevates the work is the keenness of its observation and the nuanced emotional rendering of its world.”

Warwick Cairns

Warwick Cairns wrote “Yeovil opens doors. Being long listed or shortlisted, for an award like the Yeovil Literary Prize can make a real difference to an aspiring author. It can mark the moment when you go from slogging away month after month and year after year to churn out yet another unsuccessful manuscript for the slush-pile, to being someone agents and publishers actually want to talk to. It makes a difference for readers, too. It’s always a thrill when you come across fresh new writers, and characters you want to spend time with. Awards like Yeovil are where you can find them first. So a big thank you, Yeovil. I promise I’ll keep you updated with how I progress in the career you helped to kick start.”

Our judge Annie commented

“Here is a fully imagined London of 1600, as detailed as a Brueghel and similarly immersive. The copious research undoubtedly required to create the scene does not, however, over-freight the mechanism of story, which is adeptly set in motion in this piece. Characters are distinct and vivid, notwithstanding their array, and each is so confidently presented and set upon his or her collision course with the others that their individuality is unquestionable, and readers may simply submit themselves to the world of the novel.”

Warwick Blanchett

Warwick Blanchett was born in New Zealand, has lived also in Canada, where he worked as a musician and a translator. In 2000 he published Mrs Rochester, a satirical sequel to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. His agent in London is Christine Green.

Our judge Annie commented

“Written with an attention and precision that seems to mirror the esthetic of the world it depicts, this notably elegant entry manifests both a sense of design and of control. The setting is distinct and interesting, and the characters, while operating under unfamiliar protocols, are emotionally accessible, their fates urging our attention.”

Seven Dead Bods written by Nick Owen from England
Annie commented: “I loved this character and his predicament. A genuine page-turner.”

Red Steel written by Clare Hawkins from England
Annie commented: “A very well-drawn and well-imagined scenario.”

The Days Are Falling In written by Beverley Stark from England
Annie commented: “The military scenes in particular were excellent. Pleasing characterization of hero.”

Silent Was Our Song written by Nathalie Chong from England
Annie commended: “Adept pacing and nice management of various time periods.”

Michele Evenstar

Michele Evenstar was born in and has now finally returned to Devon (lured back by Dartmoor, the sea and the expectation of more sunshine than the rest of the country). She has also lived in Libya (as a child), London, South Africa, Mozambique and Bristol.

From early childhood reading gripped her (not least because books offered an irresistible alternative to reality). She stumbled into a career in computing but recently retired to see what happens when she has considerably more time and less money. She has discovered she loves writing and baking chocolate cakes.

Lately, encouraged by a group of friends (‘The Friday Writers’), she has entered some competitions. She has had a short story published in Writer’s Forum magazine. Michele is hugely delighted, slightly terrified and immensely encouraged to have won this category in the Yeovil Literary Prize.

The plight of people driven to become refugees was behind this story. Michele has donated half the prize to Save the Children’s Syria Emergency Appeal.

Our judge, Victoria Hislop, commented

“This is a very poignant story that gradually unfolds as time goes on in a very fresh and surprising way. It is about regaining the voice in both a real and metaphorical way. The situation that the writer describes is a very current and very important one – the trauma and recovery of a refugee child. There are some wonderful observations and passages of writing too.”

Dennis Harkness

A Liverpudlian by birth and a Somerset resident for the last sixteen years, I won my first ‘Literary’ prize in 1947, with the Meccano Magazine (those were the days!). Since university a varied career, including Assistant Manager at Port Talbot Docks; and Sales Director for an Engineering Company; until, at 40 I found my metier as Mr Brog of Brog Puppets, a peripatetic one-man puppet theatre. I wrote the plays, 14 of them, all involving lots of constructive audience participation. In 2002 I retired to the Quantocks with my wife (Juliet Harkness, the artist). Since then I’ve been writing stories with a Creative Writing Group of Bridgwater U3A.

Our judge, Victoria Hislop, commented

“This takes us into the mind of someone suffering from dementia. Once again it is extremely poignant and uses language in a very clever way. I found it sad and moving, but also has a real truth about it. And the ending surprised me – it was well constructed in that way.”

Christopher Holt

Christopher Holt was born in Exeter in 1941 and has worked as a teacher, farmer, ecologist and administrator in Africa, Australia and the Solomon Islands. He lived for a time in Communist East Germany at the height of the Cold War. His experiences have inspired his fiction, not through nostalgia but from a belated understanding of their significance to the present day.

Christopher was the winner of the novel category in the 2016 Yeovil Literary Prize with his novel, Orphaned Leaves.

All four of his self-published novels have been shortlisted in major UK competitions and he is presently researching material for his next book.

Our judge, Victoria Hislop, commented

“It was well-written, very original and also profound. It is bleak, but often short stories are (and most of the ones in this short list were fairly tough in their themes). This was lyrical and deals with death in a very poetic fashion.”

Laurence O’Dwyer

Laurence O’Dwyer holds a PhD in paradigms of memory formation from Trinity College Dublin. His first book of poetry, ‘Tractography’ (Templar Poetry, 2018) received the Straid Collection Award. In 2018, he was a visiting scholar at the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge. In 2017, he received a fellowship from The MacDowell Colony. In 2016, he won the Patrick Kavanagh Award for Poetry. He has also received a Hennessy New Irish Writing Award. His work has been published in The Guardian, Warscapes, World Literature Today, Salamander, Mudlark, Poetry Salzburg Review, The Stinging Fly, Magma and elsewhere.

Our judge, Katie Donovan, commented

“This poem caught my attention right away. The scene in an old working shed is described with vivid, fond exactness: “windows/grimed in spume and salt’ and “sepia bottles, brushes, pallets”. With its rusty contents and memories of more productive times, the shed becomes a metaphor for a lost golden age of a fisherman’s daily tasks, and a lighthouse that could once shed light for twenty miles: ”Centuries dim and are diminished”.

That the “useless” modern day laser must be packed up and returned serves to emphasise how much of a haunted limbo this fascinating outpost has become. This poem features a poignant message expressed in atmospheric language, but there is more here for the reader to relish. The poet shows an admirable capacity to experiment with line length and half rhyme. This is mingled with a conversational quality that suggests the camaraderie between the workers as they box the unwanted laser.

One of the finest contemporary poems in the English language is “A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford” by the great Irish poet, Derek Mahon. “The Old Light” reminds me of Mahon’s poem. It is a lament made all the more potent by its humble setting.”

Glen Wilson

Glen Wilson lives with his wife and two children in Portadown, Co Armagh. He works as a civil servant and is Worship Leader at St Mark’s Church of Ireland Portadown. He studied English and Politics at Queens University Belfast and has a Post-Graduate Diploma in Journalism studies from the University of Ulster. He has been widely published having work in The Honest Ulsterman, The Stony Thursday Book, Foliate Oak, Iota, the Interpreters House, Southword, The Ogham Stone, The Luxembourg Review, RAUM and The Incubator Journal amongst others. In 2014 he won the Poetry Space competition and was shortlisted for the Wasafiri New Writing Prize. He was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing 2016 and The 2016 Wells Festival of Literature. He won the Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing 2017 for his poem The Lotus Gait. His debut collection is coming out with Doire Press in 2019.

Our judge, Katie Donovan, commented

“This poem, about the great themes of love and death, manages to be both elegant and fresh. It also contains a twist that surprises the reader at the end. The poet shows an ease with rhyme and rhythm and the mood is uplifting and elegiac. The reader is left with a lovely sense of energy and surrender: “even my white-knuckled grief needs to go over the falls.”

Christopher M. James

Christopher M. James started writing poetry in late 2016 after retiring from a career in Human Resources. He has been a prize winner in several competitions (Poets meet Politics, Sentinel, Poetry Pulse ...), notably winning the Earlyworks Poetry Prize 2018, and has been published in a selection of anthologies and magazines. Inspired to write about “all and sundry”, his recurrent themes include memory, mythology, everyday heroism, artistic endeavour and the environment.

A graduate in English/Philosophy, he is a dual British/French national and has lived for forty years in France, Italy and Thailand.

Our judge, Katie Donovan, commented

“In a clash of the ancient and the contemporary, this poem shows us the leatherback turtle as she lays her eggs. The perspective is that of the curious human determined to invade her privacy, yet whom she ignores. The concluding lines are particularly memorable: “eyes streaming on skin rind/like an old, old child’s.”

Bob Shepherd

Bob commented: “I have been a member of writing groups for many years. Writing groups are invaluable for sharing ideas and for getting feedbacks on what you have written. My other great love is running. Some of my best ideas have been developed when rushing through the glades. I love to write crime and if I can squeeze in some humour then I am a happy writer.”

Our judge, Michael Jecks, commented

“The mood of this piece, for me, was very sad. My immediate reaction was, that a middle-aged woman was being horribly badly treated by her old company and forced to resign because she must look after an aged, unwell mother. Then the slowly burgeoning relationship between the carer and her ex-colleague created in me (as a crime writer) an instant feeling of distrust and suspicion, a suspicion that was only enhanced when I heard that he was married. Then the invitations out, leading to a naughty weekend, and I was hooked. I knew, obviously, that the man was a sexual predator, and the poor woman who had lost her job, and by now her mother too, was nothing more than a rather pathetic victim.

And then the flurry of letters from her, all with no response, asking where he is, how they had ‘such a special time together’, how she ‘should like to speak with you soon as there is something I need to discuss’, and that she ‘must speak with you on an urgent basis’ and finally, ‘Is something amiss? My latest letter has been marked “Return to Sender”. What can this mean?’

All so predictable, and rather sad.

But the last letter turns the entire correspondence on its head. It was superbly well written, perfectly imagined and executed, and for that, for the quality of the characterisation in the writing, and the excellent tone of the piece, I think this has to get first prize.”

Jilly O’Brien

Jilly O'Brien is a poet and psychologist. Originally from Yorkshire, with a family who hail from Dawlish, Devon, she now calls Aotearoa New Zealand home. She has had poems published in takahē, Catalyst, The Spinoff, the Otago Daily Times, Blackmail Press, and in various anthologies in both NZ and the UK. In 2018 she was shortlisted for the Open Book/Geometry poetry competition and the Federation of Writers (Scotland) Vernal Equinox poetry competition, and won the Dunedin UNESCO City of Literature Robert Burns poetry competition. Jilly is currently writing about women of history we thought we knew, but maybe didn’t. She is delighted to have won second prize in the Writing without Restrictions category, with her poem ‘Ann Boleyn asks Irma’, and thinks the judge Michael Jecks would make a mighty fine Agony Uncle himself, should he choose to do so.

Our judge, Michael Jecks, commented

“I thought this was superb. It’s the sort of dialogue one can imagine being sent in today by women who are the trophy wives of high-powered oligarchs - or, dare I say, an American president’s wife? - but set out as a series of letters to different agony aunts who each give their own advice based on their magazine (I assume - I’ve never read any of these women!)

It starts out pretty innocuously, talking about her ‘boss’ who wants to
sleep with me
well, have sex with me
and he is ‘creepy’ - but he’s ‘rich though’. And I loved the ‘p.s. I think he likes my sister’.

From there Anne starts to get advice from agony aunts Irma Kurtz, Mariella Frostrup, Peggy Makins, and Claire Raynor, each of whom has her own specific spin on the situation. Irma is blunt:
This is pretty tricky
It can get sticky, trust me and why invest in a toxic relationship?

Whereas Mariella takes the more Grauniad approach, and having heard the man’s married, she says:
you could play hard to get
try a little role play.

I loved the Peggy Makins advice, on hearing that ‘my boss is not that nice’ and on hearing he had to marry Anne:
… he juggled his schedule
changed vicars
went to court
sorted
Peggy’s response: ‘It sounds like he’s a reformed character’ was perfect!

And the last, plaintive note to Claire Rayner was indescribably sad, when she says she doesn’t ‘feel safe’, that:
he’s blaming me
and/or witchery
for losing the boy …
of looking elsewhere
for another baby
to love.

Claire’s advice, ‘Make sure that you have a plan B’ doesn’t work terribly well, as the last lines make clear:

Dear Anne
Is everything ok?

Anne?”

Valerie French

Valerie wrote,. “My entry for the prize is based on my experience of Internet dating. Trained as a journalist in Vancouver, I’ve been reporting and writing professionally for over 10 years. My work has appeared in various publications including The Guardian, Vancouver Sun and CBC/Radio Canada.

In 2016 I decided to venture into creative writing and, with the help and encouragement of my local writers’ group, I’ve had some success with a radio play submitted to Writers’ Room.

Our judge, Michael Jecks, commented

“Again, a brilliant piece of writing, and a cautionary tale for all those who are embarking on new relationships through internet dating. From the first impression, ‘you’re way shorter than me,’ to the bullying of two elderly ladies at the entrance, to the ‘Coffee and cakes first, you suggest. Aha! So that’s the secret to your girth,’ the writer sets out the gradual decline in interest in this potential Romeo, taking all the milk for his coffee, his endless talking, never letting the author get a word in edgeways, until the moment when she realises, ‘Any hopes for this date being “the one” were long ago doused, extinguished, drowned.’ And then he goes on, and on, ‘I consider stabbing you with a plastic fork,’ and ‘How much more can I bear?’

But still, being British, she is polite all the way to the end. As I said, this is a brilliant little piece.”

Life Cycle of the Worry Worm (Vermis Curarum) by Linda Burnett from England.

“I loved this. From the early beginnings, ‘tiny fingers teasing out the goodness’, ‘dormant ones can lie for many years’, and ‘The rest take hold as opportunity arises’, this has the reader thinking, nodding and thinking, ‘Oh, yes!’ The writer evokes recognition in every line from the highly imaginative series of metaphors and similes. A powerful, inventive piece of work.”