Back in November, I had the pleasure of judging the annual Katharine Susannah Prichard Speculative Fiction Award. The results along with my judge’s report can be found at the KSP website, along with the results of the Short Fiction Award and The Karen W Treanor Poetry Awards.
It was great see the wide range of speculative fiction ideas presented by both new and accomplished writers. The winning stories of the Open Section were of a high standard and would require minimal polishing for publication. The Young Writer’s Section had a range of stories with varying strengths in different areas; but all tackled thought-provoking ideas. To judge these fairly, I needed to consider each entrant’s age, which ranged from eleven to twenty years. Overall, my decisions were based on stories that not only held my attention from beginning to end, but also resonated with aspects of the real word while seamlessly incorporating fantastical elements. I looked for stories that illuminated something interesting about the human condition, told from the points of view of well-rounded characters whose personalities were not based on stereotypes. More…
Congratulations to the winners and commendeds. Congratulations also to my writing buddy, Joanne Mills for her poem, Flying is Easy, which won third place in The Karen W Treanor Poetry Awards.
