Short Story Judge’s Report 2025
Judge’s report 2025 by Wendy Clarke
It’s been three years since I last judged this competition and when I was asked if I’d like to judge it again, I agreed straight away. Who wouldn’t want the privilege of reading well-written, entertaining stories?
All competition judges have their own way of choosing their winners and this is how I made my (admittedly difficult) choice. Last week, on a glorious sunny day, I opened up my beach hut, unfolded my deck chair and spent several enjoyable hours reading through the entries. This first read-through was all about initial impressions – whether the story had that special something in its characters, setting or plot that piqued my interest enough to read it again. If it did, I’d set it aside, then the next day study it in more detail. This time I’d be looking at whether the story had a complete arc, consider what it was that made the characters compelling, and decide how successfully the author’s words transported me to the place where the action happened. The final step was to see if the ending was satisfying. After narrowing the stories down in this way, my top choices were read again in order to determine which three had made the strongest impact.
The standard was extremely high and I’d like to congratulate all the entrants as each had something to commend them. I really did enjoy reading each and every one and, at the end of the day, any judge’s decision is just that – their opinion. If your story didn’t make the final three this year, it might in another competition with a different judge. Very well done to you all.
1st place: Feather of Owl, Sinew of Wolf
I chose this story as my winner because it has everything – an interesting plot with an ending that mirrors the beginning (something I’m particularly fond of), an interesting public school setting and realistic schoolboy characters who stand out from one another as they raid Matron’s room.
Reading this story, I found myself taken back to those awkward years around puberty when you’re desperate to grow up. Most of us, at some time in our past, have come across a male or female ‘Jarratt’ (the narrator Crabtree’s ‘icon and nemesis’). Someone who is better looking than us and with more knowledge of the world. As I read the scene where Jarratt puts the narrator in his place after an ill-advised comment, I couldn’t help but share in his embarrassment. Feeling the rush of his ‘hot and treacherous blood’ up his collar as though it was happening to me!
But there’s so much more to the story than the schoolboy prank at the start. As we read on, we learn how difficult it can be for a young person to do the right thing. When Matron, whose room the boys have been snooping in, tells the headteacher her dreamcatcher (used to stop her having nightmares about the young man she lost in the war) has been stolen, Crabtree wrestles with his conscience. The reader hopes he’ll return the dreamcatcher and it’s the disappointment we feel when he doesn’t, that makes the ending of the story work so well. Unlike Matron, the narrator has gone on to have a successful life and when the final twist comes, it’s hard not to feel a sense of justice. After all, what goes around comes around. Sorry Crabtree!
2nd place: Kesler Keeps His Clothes on at the Party
If there was a prize for the best title, this story would win it! Before I’d even begun to read, I was intrigued and that’s always a good start. I found this snapshot of an aging, recovering-alcoholic musician struggling to get back his mojo, to be character-led and engaging. The writing is intelligent, unselfconsciously introspective and doesn’t pull any punches.
It’s all about the showing rather than the telling in this piece – the ‘badly-painted lawn chair’ that ‘creaks ominously but resigns itself to his sorry ass’ gives us all we need to know about our protagonist and how he’s feeling. As does the phrase ‘sliding into a comfy hot tub of longing’. I found myself rooting for the guy – wanting him to find the spark that would reignite his creativity. And when he did, I mouthed a silent hurrah!
3rd place Pirate
My third place story was chosen because of its sense of place. Proof that, done well, a good, interesting setting will add a huge amount of value to the finished piece. Although we are never told where the story is set, immediately I started reading, I was transported to a place where a one-eyed calico sits behind a pecan tree, where someone with the wonderful name of Miss Delores Cottonmouth hollers across the street and the protagonist wears cardboard sandals. I didn’t need to know exactly where it was – I could hear it in the slam of Miss Cottonmouth’s screen door and feel it in the press of the cinder block foundations against the child’s back as she hides with her brother in the crawl space beneath her house. It appears, on the surface, to be a story about sibling love and the acceptance of a less than perfect life, but at the end, the reader is rewarded with a small nugget of hope. As the child shoos away the calico from the house, we see in that action that she’s not a passive spectator. She has a dream of a future far away from what she knows and we want her to reach out for it.
