*****And the winner is...I placed third in the Sunday Star Times Short Story Awards - Non Fiction category, 2013. Click here for my story:
Last Sunday (13.10.13), I found out I’m a finalist in the ‘Sunday Star Times Short Story Awards Non-fiction Category’.
There I was
minding my own business in the Christchurch Koru Lounge when I cleared my
emails and found this:
Wow!
Congrats to Queenstown writer and wit @janeebloom Jane Bloomfield, finalist in
non-fiction category at @SundayStarTimes writing award
|
To say I
came over all funny would be the understatement of 2013. I started shouting to
my daughter on the other side of the room. She was scuttling back from the
buffet minding her own business too.
Soon we were
both having an attack of the vapours, sharing that first heady glow of feeling
like the-chosen-won.
Yet, how did
Mr Braunias know? I quickly searched through the Sunday newspaper, lying
crumpled beside me on the newly upholstered moss green banquette.
“Sunday
Star-Times short story finalists named”
“Never
mind the Man Booker, this is our
literary shortlist”
If you say
so!
“For the
first time, the 2013 competition included a non-fiction category, for a story
of 800-900 words on the theme of ‘family’. This category, which attracted
around 130 entries, was judged by Sunday magazine editor Kim Knight.”
I read on…
And there
was my name, Jane Bloomfield.
Along with fellow
finalists: Ellen Rowntree & Megan Doyle Corcoran. And highly commended,
Edgar Clapshaw and Charle Farnell.
“The winners
will be announced in the Sunday Star-Times on November 3.”
Two weeks
yesterday. It may as well be three years…
Since Sunday
13 (my new lucky number) October 2013, I’ve experienced elation,
deflation, confusion, angst and paranoia. Questions like, is there more than
one writer called Jane Bloomfield in New Zealand, have crossed my mind?
When daughter
15, read the first draft of the story I sent in she sobbed. She said afterwards that my piece had inspired her to write. So if that is the secondary
outcome of this, I’ll be a proud
mum.
“The awards,
which have been running for three decades, have helped launch the careers of
numerous Kiwi literary stars...” The article says.
I’m not
holding my breath (anymore). But meanwhile, I’ll enjoy my finalist status and
say good luck to my fellow finalists because, at the end of the day, the best
story will win.
'A Letter To My Brother' - published in the Sunday Magazine, 19th January 2014
'A Letter To My Brother' - published in the Sunday Magazine, 19th January 2014
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