The finalists for the 2013 Costa Short Story Award have now been announced here. Six stories are available to download and read or listen to and you can vote for your favourite. The winning story will be announced early in 2014. At present the names of the shortlisted authors are being withheld so the voting can be based on the quality of the story. Sadly, once again they did not pick the Indoor Writer's story - she'll be working hard next year to rectify this oversight.
We're still working through the stories so will have to disclose our favourite in a future post. Please share what you think of this year's finalists. Which one will you vote for?
There seemed to be a running theme of sadness/trauma experienced in an unusual location. Can't say that most of them were what I enjoy reading, but everyone has different tastes. I voted for the one story that wasn't on that theme, though it did have the trauma element.
ReplyDeleteAs competition judges are often saying (but never seem to take to heart when judging) where was the humour or the joy?
Hmm, I was rather disappointed that these were the top 6, as the majority contained some pretty ordinary writing. I also felt several of these didn't have satisfying endings - in fact I was still scrolling expecting more to come but the story was done. My favourite was Still Water simply because of the imaginative setting, but again it finished suddenly. Forgiveness was obvious and overlong. Will be interesting to have the authors unnamed. I agree, Bernadette, with your comments on humour and joy - wonder if this is more the readers for the comp, perhaps they keep selecting what they think should be winning big competitions? Would be good to see a big competition promoting more positive stories!
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