Our judge A.J. West wrote: Instantly engaging, this adventure takes the reader into a thrilling and heartful story at a clip, with bold and bright characters and a huge sense of fun. The writing is characterful and rich with lovely flourishes - 'glittering in the sunlight like a million stars: the sea' - while the entire caper remains in the firm grip of an author who has clearly researched the era with care, attention and enthusiasm. Huge fun and a story I'd love to sail away with.

Lora Davies

Lora studied English at Hull University before training at East 15 Acting School, and she went on to work as an actor, director and workshop leader. In 2018, Lora undertook a Masters in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway, University of London, and had two historical fiction novels published. She is fascinated by all things historical, particularly the 18th and 19th centuries, and by the stories of the people and places that have been neglected or forgotten. She now lives in Brighton where she can usually be found swimming in the sea or walking in the South Downs.

Our Judge A.J. West wrote: Prose packed with heart and an instant sense of time and place. Characters speak with such clear voices; they seem utterly real with dialogue as charming and cheerful as it is evocative. There is a quiet peacefulness to it all, comforting in its isolated gloom, the flash of the red fringe and the brown muck of the pigs painting a vivid picture in the reader's imagination. Aching and yearning for space, Seamus is trapped by the open land and tangled wire and the reader cannot help but yearn and ache with him. Beautiful, intelligent, confident writing.

Maurice Carlin

Maurice is co-artistic director of Islington Mill in Salford, a leading hub for queer arts in the UK. Originally from a rural Irish border community, since moving to England he has worked as both a musician and visual artist. In a Quare Country has been short and long listed for the Yeovil, Cheshire, BPA and First Chapter Prizes (all 2023) plus the Tempest Prize, 2024.

Our Judge A.J. West wrote: Clearly very well researched with fine detail and a lightness of touch reminiscent of C.J. Sansom. Characters are bright and defined with dialogue that feels both authentic to the setting and natural in flow. The dual timeline suggests these loveable characters might bring the reader some emotional moments, while the famous bard at the centre of the story is already displaying a reckless, hot-headed personality that surely promises an adventure is in store.

Glyn Harper

GD Harper has written three psychological thrillers set in Glasgow and London, Love’s Long Road, A Friend in Deed and Silent Money, as well as a historical novel, The Maids of Biddenden, the story of 12th-century conjoined twins from Biddenden in Kent. He has been a winner in the historical fiction category of the 2024 Next Generation Indies Award and shortlisted for the 2023 Selfies Award at the London Book Fair, as well as being shortlisted or longlisted for nine other literary prizes. He lives in East Sussex and, when not writing, can be found wild camping in the Scottish mountains or in the mosh pit at live music events.

Our Judge Julie Goodall wrote: ‘That Golden Hour’ is a beautifully crafted story that manages to be both expansive and yet intimate. The story opens with a declaration that what we are about to read are conversations with ‘Famous Fitzroy Residents – 1970–2020’, and this piece is told through the eyes of two people who meet in Fitzroy in 1968. It not only covers decades, but traverses the world, telling a beautifully circular tale of the highs and lows of two separate lives. The writing pulls you through the story at a pace, so it could be easy to miss wonderful nuances like ‘Couples tend to fall in love simultaneously, but falling out of love is a game of solitaire.’ Rachel states that doubts are ‘colonising my brain’ and Vince includes a delightful Italian saying that ‘The fish always stinks from the head’. These pertinent touches are sprinkled throughout the simple but clever first-person monologues of Rachel and Vince.

In just under 2000 words, ‘That Golden Hour’ provides a narrative that could easily translate to a full-length book or a movie. At the end, the relevance of the title moves the reader deeply, leaving us with images that are genuinely hard to forget.

Andrea Pavleka

Andrea Pavleka is a Melbourne based author and is new to this whole creative writing caper. In 2024 she won the Peter Carey Short Story Award and in 2023 she was the winner of the Jennifer Burbidge Short Story Award. She was also commended and shortlisted in other writing competitions in 2024. Andrea has been published in Meanjin 83.3 Spring 2024, The Adas 2023 Anthology and in 20Artists – The Handwritten Issue. Andrea is currently writing a trilogy of YA novels. In her spare time, she digs up dinosaur bones in outback Australia and is a volunteer fossil preparator with the Eromanga Natural History Museum. In a past life, she had a thirty-year career as a prosecutor.

Our judge Julie Goodall wrote: ‘Counting to Ten’ is a sensitive portrayal of what can happen to ‘forever love’ in the wake of a life-changing injury to one of the partners. The account is ingeniously narrated from a first-person perspective, but from outside of the couple, looking in. After the opening drama, we are drawn into the frustration and heartache of Julie and Callum, highlighted by a political backdrop that, for Callum, is literally life or death.

When reading ‘Counting to Ten’, there is a definite sense of ‘there but for the grace of God go I’, and this is not an easy situation to bring into the light. Nevertheless, the writer has found a way to do just that, leading us to a conclusion that avoids cliché or an unrealistic get-out. We are left with a sense of real-life, with all the pain, joy and relief that can involve.

John Kirkaldy

John Kirkaldy has only recently started writing fiction. For most of my life, I have written academic history books, travel articles and book reviews. As an OU tutor, I was part of course teams that researched and wrote four TV series. For most of my life, I enthused to students that if they had the opportunity to make the best of any gap year or part gap year; they should grab it with both hands. I, unfortunately, did the world’s worst gap year – working as an accountant in the City of London. On retirement, I went around the world, visited fourteen countries, worked in three, and was a volunteer for three months on a project in India for women and girls from poor backgrounds and low caste. I published an account, I’ve Got a Metal Knee: A 70 Year Old’s Gap Year. I have just written a novella, Life: A Fifty-Fifty Path? which is due out in late 2024. I feel an enormous satisfaction and pride in getting a prize in this competition.

Our Judge Julie Goodall wrote: ‘Ladybird’ is a story that has a number of different perspectives. As a ‘coming of age’ tale, we are reminded of the agony of trying to impress during those ‘finding oneself’ years, and how easy it is to feel like we’ve got it all wrong. There is a slick repetition of ‘I only knew’, which somehow serves to reveal how much the main protagonist doesn’t know, and the story gently unravels to show how our upbringing can impact our education and interests. There are some deep questions, asking us to consider whether or not we should change for ourselves, someone else or even the planet. This requires a pause, to judge what our response to such questions might be. The description of footage from Somalia is stark and sensitively depicted, contrasting with the beauty and artistic sketches of the British countryside. We see the importance of everything, no matter how small, through the lens of Sam’s environmental knowledge, but by way of highlighting, never didacticism.

Finally, we are brought back to the ladybird of the title, and Sam’s earlier explanation to an environmentally naïve narrator helps us to see that there is, in fact, hope for us all.

Clare Shaw

I had one novel published many years ago and then got diverted by playwriting resulting in short plays being performed in pub theatres and at local festivals. Then I got the bug for short story writing and have had stories in anthologies published by Farrago, Patrician Press and Arachne Press. I have also had stories in online magazines and in Mslexia. I won the Frinton Short story competition, the ALC Essex competition, and the Essex Book Festival/EGT competition and have been short listed for others. I am thrilled to be placed in the prestigious Yeovil Prize. I would really like to put some of my stories together in my own anthology!

Our Judge Michael Glover wrote: A confessional of a poem, conversational and almost casual in its approach, poignant and disarmingly touching - holding itself open to the wounds of ageing - which interrogates the nature of what an older person’s dreams retrieve, the surprise and the solace of the unexpected, that ‘longing to possess the unpossessable’ of earlier days, it’s quality of understatement very carefully judged.

Our Judge Michael Glover wrote: This is a work of reverie and inwardness made outward. It digs into its subject - the changing nature of the books to which we become, little by little, addicted. How we form the idea of a library from a gathering of cherished titles, and how they shape and define us. There are gentle puns, good half/rhymes - everything proceeds slowly and with tact. The poem is on a journey in which it discovers the nature and meaning of its own subject.

David Short

Born in Poole, Dorset on 09/06/1935. Son of Bernard Short (died 1970) who wrote several books on Dorset and had a fortnightly column in the Poole and East Dorset Herald. After three years in the army, including service in the Middle East with the Royal Scots, read English at Oxford (St Edmund Hall). Under auspices of the British Council, taught in Poland, Turkey and Japan (Lecturer, University of Kyushu). Worked for the civil service from 1976; appointed CBE in 1995. Widower; three children; eight grandchildren. Publications include: A guide to stress in English (1967, University of London Press); Humour (1970, Darton, Longman and Todd).

Our Judge Michael Glover wrote: ‘White-tailed eagle’ is the shortest of the poems, but also amongst the most focussed, well made, skilfully controlled in its effects, and carefully crafted. It is a succession of well paced rhyming couplets, a poem of praise whose words are well and aptly chosen - there is no hint of verbal excess - that builds its tension line by line. A fine, well-judged achievement.

Dawn Lawrence

I am Greek on my mother’s side and was born in Wales, but now live in Dorset. I have been writing poetry, as a child and then carried on into teenage years, but have entered only a few competitions, the first being The Theatre for Mankind, New Literature & Drama Competition for those with Greek connections worldwide, hosted at the Hellenic Centre, London; the other being the Pool Poetry Writers Prize 2010, for which in both cases I was awarded first prize.

I have been writing for The People’s Friend magazine for over 20 years, first for the Children’s Page and then for the Features Editor, also contributing to their other periodicals and their Christmas Fireside Book, and this trend continues to this day.

Also, I have been a speaker for the Born Free Foundation, working to save the world’s endangered wildlife, for the past ten years, the co-founder of which is the celebrated actress, author and wildlife campaigner, Dame Virginia McKenna DBE, who has written forewords for several of my twelve books. I have also received a diploma to acknowledge my charity work for Born Free over the past ten years as a ‘Wildlife Warrior’ – their terminology.

Our judge Kiran Millward Hargrave wrote: THE HERALD’S ZOO is an exciting, original story told in a confident voice that I wanted to hear more from. Hugh, Sarah, and the bully Aubrey were well drawn, and I could tell the author knew them well enough to develop them in directions the reader wouldn’t see coming. I wanted to return to the Herald’s Zoo and witness the Procession – the synopsis shows a well thought through story I could see many children devouring. In an extraordinary shortlist, the winner had to be extraordinary, and THE HERALD’S ZOO is.

Nina Hoole

Nina Hoole is a full-time mum and part-time dinner lady and Beaver Scout leader from the West Midlands. She enjoys writing both fiction and non-fiction based on events or places that inspire her.

Her story 'The Great Meerkat Escape' appeared in Walker Books' 'The Mumsnet Book of Animal Stories', and her poem 'Dazzling Dragonflies' is in The Emma Press poetry anthology 'The Bee is Not Afraid of Me'.

Nina also writes for adults, with several short stories published in magazines including The People's Friend, as well as articles on social history and genealogy.

Our Judge Kiran Millward Hargrave wrote: THE NIGHTHAWK DETECTIVES has some of the best descriptors I've ever read. I loved Aunt Julia, 'slender as a vanilla bean', Penelope moving 'fast as a rat' and writing 'spiked like a hedgehog' or 'looped with monkey tails'. As for the plot - delicious! And I'm sure this will be a story that is told as well as it is plotted.

Melanie Whitmarsh

Originally from Wiltshire, Melanie left the UK twenty-five years ago and has since lived in Albania, Georgia, Spain, Vietnam, Hong Kong, and Indonesia. No surprises that she loves books about travel, outsiders, and language. She’s worked as a corporate copywriter, magazine editor, travel journalist, and photographer. The Nighthawk Detectives is her first middle grade manuscript.

Our Judge Kiran Millward Hargrave wrote: PAPER BOATS is an imaginative and lovely picture book that - having read many tooth grinding attempts - perfectly captures the cadence and connection a parent wants when sharing a book with their child.

Triona Harris

Triona is a Devon based writer with a degree in English and Creative Writing. She works as a nurse and lives with her husband, three young children, and a variety of animals, in a small village nearby. She has always had a passion for writing and was well known at school for submitting her homework in rhyming verses. She also enjoys sea and river dipping, country music, growing house plants, and is quite partial to Eton mess! Triona is currently working on several writing projects and is thrilled to have been named on the Yeovil Literary Prize List.

Our Judge Kiran Millward Hargrave wrote: I STILL STAND is an engagingly written, timely story with vivid characters and a plot that made me want to read on.

Claire Lomas

Claire Lomas grew up in the Warwickshire countryside and nature still makes her wide-eyed. Although she loves a city vibe, wide open spaces are where she feels happiest, especially if there are trees and water. She started writing as a child and studied English Literature at university. She lives with her family and Meg, the best dog ever. Music is almost as big a part of her life as words. When not writing, she plays and teaches the cello. I Still Stand is her second novel for children (if you don’t count JoJo and the Magic Kingdom, written age 7) and she is delighted that it has been awarded a prize at Yeovil.

Our Judge Jennie Godfrey wrote: First - Home - which drew me in immediately with its visceral sense of place and descriptive writing, and it had a stunning ending. I found myself thinking about this piece long after I had read it.

Tony Irvin

Tony Irvin has a veterinary degree and PhD from Cambridge and went to Kenya for twenty years, to study a disease of cattle and wildlife which no one outside Africa has ever heard of. He travelled throughout the region working in collaboration with African scientists and indigenous people, such as the Maasai. He published widely in the scientific literature but, having returned to the UK, now writes fiction for adults and children, all of which is set in hot places.

Our Judge Jennie Godfrey wrote: Acrobatics on the landing - which is an emotional piece, full of characterisation and evocative detail, with a surprising, poignant ending.

Edward Sergeant

Edward has a lifelong passion for books and literature and for many years worked in bookshops. He now lives in North Yorkshire and works at a major tourist attraction. He has an MA in Creative Writing from York St John University and has been placed in several writing competitions over the years, including Yeovil WWR. His short story collection, 'Golden Triangle' is available from Amazon.

Our Judge Jennie Godfrey wrote: Winter Hedge - which was a lovely piece of nature writing, one that impressed me with its richness of description and the invocation of the whole world in a hedge.

Jenny Hunt

Jenny is a writer and artist living in a medieval cottage in West Dorset. In 2001 she received an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University. Since then, she has been successful in many poetry and nature-writing competitions. Her work has been in anthologies (including 100 Poems to Save the Earth, published by Seren). Her poetry has appeared in several literary magazines. After being runner-up twice in the Nature Writer of the Year competition run by the BBC Wildlife Magazine, she became one of their local-patch reporters, publishing weekly blogs about the natural world. Jenny is thrilled to have been placed for the fourth year running in the Yeovil Literary Prize. Both her writing and her art are inspired by the countryside and coast of Dorset as well as the Isles of Scilly.