Sentinel Annual Poetry Short Story

Competition 2012

RESULTS AND ADJUDICATION REPORT

RESULTS: SENTINEL ANNUAL SHORT STORY COMPETITION 2012

Special Mentions

Rhuar Dean – Blood Dress

Stephen Atkinson – Table Top Invitation

Commended (in no particular order)

Commended stories do not receive any prize money, but will be included in the winners anthology.

David Crewe – The Mysterious Man

Mel Fawcett – The Family Way

Shiko – Damned on the Kitchen Floor

Anne Oatley – Mr Carrington

Valerie Knight – The Lure

Highly Commended (in no particular order)

£25 each plus publication in anthology.

Patricia Murray – The Berries

Andy Fawthrop – The Jumper

Belinda Rimmer – The Lady Who Feeds the Squirrels

Helen Holmes – Counting

Deborah Birch – Kindness

Third Prize

£125 plus publication in anthology

Valerie Knight – Vengeance is Mine

Second Prize

£250 plus publication in anthology

Joanna Campbell – Dream Work

First Prize

£500 plus publication in anthology

Alison Bouhmid – The Day a Heart Shifted

SENTINEL ANNUAL SHORT STORY COMPETITION 2012 –ADJUDICATION REPORT BY DAVID CADDY

Reading the Sentinel Annual Short Story Competition was an uplifting experience. There were many well-written entries drawing upon family and other relationships, childhood memories, experiences of old age, crime, gypsy and ethnic cultures and colonial life as well as mental illness, historical and feminist perspectives. Each entry was worth reading and had something to say.  Sadly, there was often a lack of structure and unpredictability about many entries. It is simply not enough to have a static description of a memory, moment, state or condition that involves no action and revelation. A minimalist approach to story development can work if the detail is exact within a knowing or flawed first or third person narrative. The best stories in the competition were incredibly varied in style and tone. They were thoroughly unpredictable, page-turners, that grabbed attention with narrative force, and strong atmosphere, precise and memorable detail and a clear structure that stayed in the memory after reading.  Several of the best stories were also very funny or mysterious.

‘The Day A Heart Shifted’ won the First Prize. It has a formidably strong narrative force and arc. The first person narrative filters information as the story line develops within a beautifully described sultry setting and leads to a ferocious and violent crescendo. It has an unrelenting pace and fierceness that lays bare the narrator’s refusal to accept an unequal relationship and its consequences. It focuses sharply upon a woman ironing and raising a family without any help from her partner. The consequences are unpredictable and internally coherent. The short stabbing sentences beautifully evoke and mirror the condition under review and work to make the story linger long after being read. It is the best executed story in terms of writing, plot and narrative force within the word limit.

‘Dream Work’ won the Second Prize. It has a similarly strong first person narrative that develops within a testing narrative arc and also reaches a transcendent ending. Every word and detail counts in this story written with a vernacular accent that deepens and widens during its course. It has the widest social reach of all the entries and great charm. It has an expertly controlled and unpredictable narrative that keeps the reader fully engaged. It is the simplicity of the story’s arc supported by considerable and significant detail that the reader remembers.

‘Vengeance is Mine’ won the Third Prize. It is economical, diligently delineated to maximize effect and turns on a joke at the end that surprises and delights the reader. The contrast between the hard-drinking Christian, colonial bigot and his devout Muslim manservant works splendidly with the underdog surprisingly upstaging the protagonist at the end. The story’s arc involves the bigot unwittingly drinking his own urine after mistakenly thinking that he had poisoned his manservant with his it. This wonderful twist makes the story memorable a long time after initial reading. It is a simple story that works through attention to every detail and builds up the story’s pitch to a fitting ending.

Amongst the Highly Commended Stories ‘The Berries’ is an outstanding story that is deeply imbued with atmosphere of time and place that brings the reader back time and time again. It has a cinematic richness in its imagery and a mysterious quality that lingers. It is perhaps more narrow in focus and has less of an arc than the top three stories yet it beguiles and works through authentic and concrete detail. ‘The Jumper’ is also a memorable story about a drunken man discovering a man about to jump off a high bridge and going on to the ledge seemingly to talk him out of jumping off. It is a tragi-comic story that surprises and delights the reader with its mixing of the narratives of two characters. ‘The Lady Who Feeds The Squirrels’ sequentially unfolds a narrative concerning a murderer that has lost his memory and works through things that are unsaid. It makes good use of the form and shows what can be achieved within a word limit. ‘Counting’ shows how childhood experiences help form an adult character in unforeseen ways. There is great use of detail and plenty of narrative action that propel the story forward. ‘Kindness’  covers much ground within the word limit and impresses with its narrative skills delineating how an individual can be drawn from one world into another as well as showing how actions can lead to consequences in a surprising way.

All of the Commended Stories impressed with their structure and were in different and compelling ways memorable.  ‘The Mysterious Man’ is a self-contained story within a story concerning the meeting of a mysterious man with a mythical tale. ‘Damned on the Kitchen Floor’ reveals the emotional and psychological impact of a participant in a struggle that leads to a knifing. ‘Mr. Carrington’ is a study of a young girl’s infatuation with her violin teacher that culminates in her coming of age and seeing her teacher in mature perspective. ‘The Family Way’ has some tragi-comic twists and turns as a man with a pregnant wife turns to an escort for sexual relief only to discover that his sister has become an escort in order to earn a living. ‘The Lure’ is a mysterious study of attraction between murderer and victim. 

These stories merit a special mention; ‘Blood Dress’ concerns the emotional, psychological and physical impact upon a woman who finds and cannot keep her perfect designer dress.  The movement from triumphant bliss to unforgiving loss is wonderfully modulated. ‘Top Table Invitation’ by moves between the internalized thoughts of a character and narrative description and action within a circular symmetry.  

David Caddy