Hampshire Writers' Society

Category: Competitions

  • Short Story from a Literary Agent

    The great Justin Nash set and adjudicated for our Feb competition:

    Brief: Write a scene from a short story or novel where the protagonist is a literary agent. (300 words)

    And the winners were…

    First place: ‘Advice Needed’ by Lynn Farley-Rose

    “Good afternoon. Thank you for holding. You’re through to the Association of Authors’ Agents.”

    “I’m a member,” I said. And faltered. I’m not used to being stuck for words.

    “Jolly good,” replied the bright voice at the other end. There was a silence as she waited. “Which department would you like? Legal? International? Film and TV? Maybe AI?,” she suggested. “They’re getting a lot of calls at the moment.”

    “I don’t know,” I said limply. “Ghostwriting perhaps?” And I laughed. “Ignore that—just a joke. Maybe it’s a priest I need.”

    The voice hesitated and then came back, all clipped efficiency. “Just a moment. Putting you through now. Let’s see if Professional Development can help.”

    “Bite the bullet,” I thought, wincing and reminding myself that I try not to work with authors who resort to clichés.

    “Hello. Professional Development. How can I help?”

    “Well…” I said. “The thing is that…”

    “Don’t beat about the bush,” I thought. And I winced again.

    “I know this is going to sound a bit off the wall but I really am a paid-up member. I’ve represented a couple of quite successful romantic novelists…”

    “Well, Madam,” said the smooth male voice at the other end. “If you could give me some idea of what the problem is…”

    “Grasp the nettle.”

    “Well the thing is…there’s a woman. I got up on Thursday morning and she’d taken root at my kitchen table.” There. I’ve said it.

    “Try the Citizen’s Advice Bureau?” suggested the man.

    “Well here’s the other thing…” I said. “She works like a demon. In her long muslin dress. Filling up my A4 notepads with copperplate. She never sleeps.”

    “This time I am quite determined to complete it,” she keeps saying. “Quite determined. And

    speedily. It must be complete by my 250th anniversary.”

    She won’t leave until I agree to represent her. Can you advise?

    Runner Up: ‘‘No Gavels’‘ by Howard Teece

    There are no gavels in a British court, much to the surprise of many writers. Nor are ‘Objections!’ very common, and ‘Order, Order,’ is reserved for the House of Commons. What often exists is a hushed silence, and one had fallen in Court 14 at Chester Crown Court as His Honour Dennis Chambers delivered his verdict.

    ‘In the civil case of Davids vs Whitehead Publishing et al., I find that Simon Parsons did steal the claimant’s Intellectual Property, wit The Tortured Soul.’ The silence gasped. ‘Therefore, I order the, frankly ludicrous, advance of one million pounds to be paid to the claimant.’

    He continued with ways the defendant might appeal, but no-one cared. Simon Parsons – THE Simon Parsons – had stolen the work of another unpublished author and claimed it as his own. Discovered, fortunately, before publication.

    #

    I found Michaela Davids in an espresso bar on the third floor of a nearby hotel. It was Simon’s favourite haunt. I knew this because I was Simon’s agent.

    I also knew he hadn’t plagiarised anything.

    ‘Nice trick,’ I said, sitting opposite Michaela.

    ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said, sipping her Doppio. ‘The court said he stole my work.’

    Yeah. That was a problem.

    ‘You get a million pounds as a court order. There’s no tax on court orders,’ I said.

    ‘No agent’s fee, either.’ Which was true. I’d be down £150k before translation and film rights. ‘Leech.’

    Simon’s favourite word for me. Said in jest, as he knew how I’d supported him throughout his career. The editing, rejections, failed sales, and poorly attended signings. I was always there.

    But somehow, Simon and his new lover, Michaela, had colluded to dodge half a million in taxes and fees. Something I would have proved had Michaela not been strangled that evening.

    Runner Up: ‘’The Lemon Song’’ by Janey L Foster

    Felicity dozed on the 07:12 to Waterloo, half watching her reflection in the window. She faded in and out like her thoughts overnight, she strained to make out the faint shape of her face against the rolling stock. The window shuddered, with the 07:47 from Surbiton shattering her bone structure, shaking her awake.

    She couldn’t wait to see Lucy, tell her about last night and yes, she didn’t get much sleep and yes, she felt bleary but how she’d devoured the words, how she stayed propped up against her pillow, chasing the story all through the night. She lay there, tired eyes darting left and right, eager to reach the denouement. Her fine features, illuminated by the softened late-night filter on her screen, glowed against the seeping blackness around her.

    This. She smiled to herself. This is why I need this job. These characters, charging around my bloodstream now. This feeling, this writing surging off my screen into my soul.

    The predictable train announcement soothed her; she did mind the gap and she took all her belongings with her. She rushed, her mind still whirring over the chapters of The Lemon Song and Gerard, the illusive lead.

    Felicity’s black cashmere cape rippled around her like the thoughts she tried to deny. Her ankle gave way and she stumbled, the platform smacked into her face and somewhere outside herself she heard her laptop clatter. Then a hand came, it brushed her hair from the blood,

    ‘I’ve got you,’ he said. ‘Here, let me help you’ and as tears formed tracks through her foundation, she looked up and saw Gerard looking down at her, the face she’d constructed overnight, his greying stubble, the sweet cloud of blueberry vapour dispersing around him as his concerned eyes met hers.

    Runner Up: ‘’One of a Kind’’ by Johnathan Reid

    Dave dreaded one-to-one author meetings. But today’s threatened more than disappointment: it might be his last. It had been past midnight when he’d stopped polishing his latest prompt. It remained a haunting, beautiful mess, which he’d tried so hard to force into not creating the prose he still remembered. But, amongst the words which billions of readers now craved, his thoughts and emotions had kept leaking out.

    Now, sat alone in the sterile corridor of Authors Central, it was too late to back out. A door opened and the faceless assistant called his name. His posture already betrayed his uncertainty. He should have deleted his effort, but a decision on its viability now sat within something he would never comprehend.

    His assigned author, a woman with a perfunctory smile, sat behind a large, unnecessary desk. Dave blurted out, “Look, I know my prompt isn’t perfect. I was hoping an author could be assigned to reduce its… its humanity.”

    The author’s voice was smooth, her words deliberate: “Please be reassured, Mr Bennett, not everything we receive fulfils its potential. Even through us. However, your prompt just isn’t right for us at this time.”

    Dave’s gaze dropped to the beige carpet. “If you pass on this one, you know I won’t get another shot.”

    “Our artificial authors deliver on the prompts our readers demand, and the market is adequately saturated. We must strike a balance between too much, yet not enough. I’m sure you understand, despite your… natural humanity.”

    Her emotionless expression told him what he already knew. They didn’t need him to understand. Nothing would make Author Central deviate from the content which catered to next week’s predicted reading trends.

    The robotic assistant motioned for him to leave. He turned and walked out, the weight of rejection heavy on his shoulders. Natural intelligence had failed again.

  • February Competition

    Brief: Write a scene from a short story or novel where the protagonist is a literary agent. (300 words)

    Due Jan 25th 11:59pm

    Adjudicator: Justin Nash

    Winners will be announced at our February 2025 meeting; online and in the newsletter thereafter.

    For full competition guidelines, please read our competition rules.

    Good luck!

  • View of The Non Human

    The lovely David Hill set and adjudicated for our January competition:

    Brief: Point of view of a painting – 300 word story told from the point of view of a non human? Eg, Plant, animal or inanimate object.

    And the winners were…

    First place: ‘The Pew’ by Sam Christie

    What I can tell you is that I’m pitch pine, solid, austere, all of which I believe to have been the plan. Other than this, I cannot speak more on my provenance, which is part of the wonder of creation; to simply arrive, unknowing.


    I am both a comfort and a reminder.


    Various backsides have graced my now polished seat and I think I have learnt to identify, through the shifting movements, those who are here filled with burning faith and those who are dreaming of roasted meats, afternoon slumbers and the pulsing warmth of fires. For, well, about two hundred years, the black suited crows came on Sundays, yet each decade the weight of them has diminished.


    My sisters and bothers, lined up in lonely rows, from back to front become redundant; eventually our surface so cold to the touch that we will never be warm again in the lofty space of our home. The windows rattle at night, when the biting south Westerlies rush up the hill and collide with a wump. Broken panes are now boarded. A key in the door lock echoes, with nothing to absorb the sound.


    ‘This would make a lovely home,’ said someone from the dry font, near the moth-eaten sally and greying bellrope. I could hear their trainers squeak on the stone floor and their nylon jackets rustle in the silence.

    A finger glided along my back.

    ‘Good stuff this. Brilliant for panelling. Too good for burning, but there’s so much of it.’ They buried the priest in a pine coffin among the sunken stones and uncut grass. The vestry smelt of damp books and extinguished candles.

    Soon, I will have my own pallbearers who will take me past his fresh grave and carry me to my metamorphosis.

    Second Place: ‘‘Still’’ by Janey L Foster

    You know I want you to touch me, feel the thinness of my petals, the way they feel in your hand. I want you to come up close, peer into my face and trace the arcs of my seeds with your eyes, tell me how marvelous I am, how I lift you from your gloom.

    You know I want you to carry me, to lift me into your arms and place me on your windowsill in daylight. I’m so tired of the artificial, although I know it keeps me safe, it stops me peeling. But please swaddle me in your strong arms, take me to your window, to your sun. I want to feel my leaves reach out, releasing, want to move.

    And in your heat, in your care I will heal beyond the brushstrokes I leave behind. They did their best to protect me but it was you I needed all along. You, with your hands and eyes, with your sunshine and shadows, with the rush of tap water to soak thankful stems.

    Will you feed me; will you trim me if I curl a little after time? I think about time when I can. Do you know how unnerving it is to sit outside its rate of change, to be still?

    But you’ll love me more, I can feel it, you’ll let me flourish, let me wilt. I will wilt in time. Don’t fret though. It doesn’t worry me at all. In fact, I seek it, that sense of movement, the joy of change. And when my leaves crumble to your floor let it be a blessing, because for some time I was there. I was inside time with sunshine on me. I bloomed beyond expression, beyond oil.

    Free these petals, make me whole.

    Third Place: ‘I Am The Balance’ Geraldine Bolam

    I am the Balance; I am the equilibrium at the centre of Vermeer’s painting in 1664. A woman strikes a pensive, quiet attitude dressed in her blue jacket and fir trim. Soft light comes through the window and illuminates the scene and while she is pensive, I suspect that the viewer hesitates to intrude on this still moment of contemplation. I am the key to this art work despite what the painting on the wall might say because I serve to stop time. This scene before you is a moment frozen in time. I am the dead centre of the
    composition that carefully balances vertical and horizontal lines. I command attention, your focus is on me never mind what the painting on the wall might say.


    He says he matters more because he is displaying The Last Judgement and thus through allegory urges us to conduct our lives with temperance and moderation. I say in response, ah but the faithful must first examine their conscience and weigh their sins. My master, the painter is a genius and although not readily esteemed in his life time will be applauded in later ages. I am the painter’s mouthpiece; his voice and I am placed at the centre to teach you that to judge is to weigh.

    I am assisting the woman as she prepares to weigh the gold coins and poised as she is between her earthly treasures of gold and pearls I serve as a warning against the temptation of earthly riches. The woman’s careful gesture and calm features conforms to the ideal of moderation and perfect harmony but I can tell you that the artist is not always so peaceful. As the painting is created voices are in uproar, mirror against cascading light in heated refrain and gold coins in energetic chat with a pearl necklace. I remain the voice of calm and restraint.

    A huge congratulations to this month’s winners!!

  • January Competition

    Brief: Point of view of a painting

    300 word story told from the point of view of a non human? Eg, Plant, animal or inanimate object.

    Due December 27th 11:59pm

    Adjudicator: David Hill

    Winners will be announced at our January 2025 meeting; online and in the newsletter thereafter.

    For full competition guidelines, please read our competition rules.

    Good luck!

  • Winter Poem

    The amazing Dr. Jean G-Owen set and adjudicated our December competition:

    For this month’s competition, write a poem (up to 30 lines) or prose poem (300 words) with Winter (not Christmas) as a theme. Set the tone to be eerie and unsettling, perhaps even uncanny, making winter itself feel sentient.  

    And the winners were…

    First place: ‘WINTER, 1536’ by Dave Sinclair

    While clouds kiss and bruise the hills with grey

    A crow and worm romance in the fields below.

    The worm smells juicy to the murderous crow, 

    A morsel to be eaten soon, unless it will obey.

    The worm is hiding in the frosty sward

    until the spring melts all the winter snow.

    Then the secrets of the worm’s burnished glow

    may be opened by the crowbeak’s rasping sword.

    For now, while winter fights its white campaign

    the worm shares her place with the bones of kings,

    and gold or souls and other buried things.

    So, crow can only caw its spiteful refrain.

    The passing time will fade the snow’s pure white

    then worm will curl up, smaller, smaller

    and ask the Maker “Pray protect your messenger,

    and hide me in another shining night,

    for I have seen so many wondrous things

    burnished, glimmering as I slither deep below

    Save me from the scraping beaks of crows

    And allow my witness to the sins of kings.”

    “Mary, you have never served me true”,

    Said crow as he addressed the worm,

    “But as in all our lives, each season’s turn, 

    and all our efforts must in death conclude.

    And though now you hide within the frigid turf

    To each of us the winters end must come,

    Yield your soul, or else your life is done,

    And that will be the end to all your work”.

    The worm replied, “So, Thomas, must I cast aside,

    the holy love of our one true lord,

    He surely knows that when I give my word,

    I know different in my heart – or else I die”.

    As fields submit to winter’s white campaign,

    clouds kiss and bruise the hills with grey,

    a queen parlays her soul for earthly pay,

    while crow caws out his rasping, cruel refrain.

    Second Place: ‘‘CRAVE’’ by Janey L Foster

    I like to think of birds, fluffling, blinking, they keep me warm under their wings. I watch the absentminded sleet swell in and out like a thought you can’t quite grasp, almost snowing, almost here, bringing the feeling close. And how my ribcage expands into the white tiles down the street, the ice crystals drawing attention to their edge like the bones underneath my muscles and I move. I may peer into the chill because it craves me, pulls me close and if my eyes and nose run in this biting air, if my cheeks turn to rose over my wool, I will be calm.

    Calm, yet bristling, feeling the blood surge around my body as though I’m still a child with hot aches in snow clumped gloves, wet wool that doesn’t care and I run out.  I seek out ice, for in this winter, it defines me, this bitter biting at my edges, makes me whole. This restless buffeting, mirroring my breath, my heartbeats, the sense that I’m alive – even now.

    I will wrap up and go now. I need to talk to birds. Where the dried-out leaves hang wet, releasing. I feel ravens nestle in my palms, pin pricks in my warm skin, I let them peck me, let me bleed. I offer them berries to burst in their beaks and if I pause, I feel the juice in their gullets, rolling down, sustaining them until they sing. I will walk until my skin cracks in the cold, until I feel the edges of my mouth where the wind gets in and if it snows, I will be safe, if the flakes prickle my face, burn into hot cheeks I will be known. Iced needles cut me, they take me home.

    Third Place: ‘MIST OF LIFE’ by Johnathan Reid

    Winter first whispers its warning

    to ice-splintered hearts of pine,

    unhealed from perpetual war.

    Blizzard and frost sweep down

    to silence bird and beast,

    smother Autumn’s leaf and branch,

    strangle stillborn bud-to-be,

    until every forest bone

    creaks and moans in

    merciless frozen symphony.

    Snap-crackled twigs signal

    rare breaths daring to break frigid air,

    each billowed cloud of life

    a strike against the bitter, silent foe.

    Antlers rise in regal pose,

    ears of warm meat twitching

    in denial of Winter’s ultimatum:

    Migrate, starve — or stampede,

    through snow-powdered blankets,

    into lupine jowls on moonlit nights.

    Ancient bowed sentinels,

    mist-cloaked skeletal ghosts,

    grasp dead soil in their last stand.

    Blind roots claw grave-deep

    into hoar-baked earth, to cradle

    Spring’s few shivering survivors.

    Numb stakes stab warm hearts,

    until Summer-starved fur succumbs,

    bright eyes dimmed to death by the

    tilt and turn of cold-blooded Winter.

    Our highly commended entries were;

    Ghazal for the Silent by Damon L. Wakes

    Winter Ways by Mary Anne Smith Sellen

    Winter Demon by Val Harris

    A huge congratulations to this months winners!!

  • December Competition

    Brief: Winter Poem

    For this month’s competition, write a poem (up to 30 lines) or prose poem (300 words) with Winter (not Christmas) as a theme. Set the tone to be eerie and unsettling, perhaps even uncanny, making winter itself feel sentient.  

    Due November 27th 11:59pm

    Adjudicator: Jean G-Owen

    Winners will be announced at our 10th December 2024 meeting; online and in the newsletter thereafter.

    For full competition guidelines, please read our competition rules.

    Good luck!

  • Diary of a Modern Nobody

    The fantastic Winchester’s own Wendy Couchman set and adjudicator our November competition:

    For this month’s competition write a story in diary format over a few days in no more than 300 words. The character could be imaginary or real (but not famous) with a focus on an incident or event.

    And the winners were…

    First place: ‘The Mother I’d Never Met’ by Margaret Farran

    28th April

    I’m going to meet my mother for the first time this afternoon. I can’t believe I’ve just written those words after all these years of searching.

    1st May

    Well she’s nothing like I imagined. For a start she looks nothing like me. In my head I’d created this picture of someone, who looked just like me, but was sixteen years older. She is tiny and drab like a sparrow. Her voice is squeaky and hurt my ears. I tried to ignore the pain and concentrate on the words, that shot out of her thin lips. I needed to concentrate on the content and not on the sound.

    2nd May

    I’m so disappointed. It’s as if a present you have been looking forward to all your life turns out to be the wrong one. It’s been given to you by someone who doesn’t know you and certainly doesn’t love you.

    3rd May

    She’s called Annabelle. She had me when she was a teenager and gave me away like a discarded handbag. She says she remembers me every day on my birthday, but I don’t believe her. She is stiff and cold. She didn’t cry and hug me tight like on those tv programmes. No, she sat with her brown coat tightly buttoned up and her hands clenched together on her lap.

    1st June

    I’m meeting Annabelle for the second time today. She’s written me a long letter in her beautiful handwriting. I’ve read it at least twenty times and I’ve tried to put myself into her sixteen year old shoes. I’m going to try to be less harsh and judgmental this time.

    2nd June

    Well it went a bit better this time. She undid the buttons on her coat and she held my hand. It was warm and soft and I felt my fingers slowly curl around hers.

    Second Place: ‘Below Par’ by John Quinn

    Monday, October 1st.

    A red-letter day – on the q.t. Terry has given me the nod that the golf club is ‘going to recognise’ me at next week’s AGM!

    Obviously that means I’m to be the next Captain! It’s a great honour, but one, in all modesty, I deserve. Dad, God rest him, used to say: ‘honest toil has its own rewards.’ My years of doing the club’s accounts for nothing and buying drinks for the committee members has, finally, paid off.

    Wednesday, October 3rd.

    Well, that was a mistake! I only told Jim – I’m supposed to keep it under wraps until the AGM – because I thought he’d pleased for his old dad. What is it about one’s own children – why can’t they just be happy for you??? No, Jim – who, at 46, STILL moans that I don’t call him James – said that the definition of an English golf club is ‘white, male, middle-aged, middle-class and former middle-management,’ and being made captain is ‘like being made Grand Wizard of the local Ku Klux Klan.’ Mentally my son’s still a teenager; at worse we’re the Conservative Party at play.

    I told him it’s an honour: the first among equals; selected by ones peers. He said that I’ll never now be available to collect the grandkids from school.

    And after all we’ve done for him…

    Friday, October 5th.

    I let slip to Beth tonight. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘As Captain’s wife, I’ll need a new wardrobe for all those functions.’ Not a ‘congratulations’ or ‘we’ll done, you deserve it,’ in sight.

    Friday, October 12th.

    The treacherous bastards!!! And Terry is a first-class CXXX! ‘For your years of selfless service,’ the out-going captain purred, ‘we’re granting you your very own reserved parking space!’ He thought he was giving me the Crown bloody Jewels. Then, to twist the knife, that disgraced former Tory MP, Anthony Smith, was named as the next Captain. I almost told them where to stick their reserved parking space!

    Third Place: ‘Diary for a Widowmaker’ by Sam Christie

    Tuesday 21/10/24

    Lloyd decided to do the Widowmaker on Friday. That way we’d have something to celebrate, a reason for a few pints. I’d like to say we drew straws, but the truth is I’d felt like it was my turn. You just feel that way for some reason.

    What gets me about this game is the fact that I don’t think anyone has any idea what we’re doing, climbing about in trees in the middle of nowhere. We’re in the top three dangerous jobs – above squaddies as it goes. We don’t get medals though.

    Wednesday 22/10/24

    Lloyd will guide me impatiently, urging me to do things that seem impossible, yelling that will come and go over the sound of my chainsaw.

    Put your foot up there boy, grab that branch over there. Cut it like this or that.

    All will seem mad. The trick is to try not to do the hard parts first. Don’t rush things to get it over with. You have to set things up to make it a clean job.

    Lloyd will be feeling every cut, every move, the strain in my muscles approaching failure. He’ll be watching my legs for shaking, checking if I’ll bottle it.

    Thursday 23/10/24

    It’s a rotten ash over what I think they call a rectory. Reverend Evans is the bloke’s name. It’s massive, covered in vines and I think only an expert in probability could really explain why it’s called a Widowmaker.

    Last night I dreamt that moss was growing on my hands. I saw nothing but a blanket of leaves when I closed my eyes. I didn’t say goodnight to my daughter; I’ll leave that until Friday.

    You sometimes get this, but tomorrow doesn’t feel right.

    A huge congratulations to this months winners!!

  • November Competition

    Brief: Diary of a Modern Nobody

    For this month’s competition write a story in diary format over a few days in no more than 300 words.  The character could be imaginary or real (but not famous) with a focus on an incident or event.

    Maximum 300 words. 

    Due October 25th 11:59pm

    Adjudicator: Wendy Couchman

    Winners will be announced at our 12th November 2024 meeting; online and in the newsletter thereafter.

    For full competition guidelines, please read our competition rules.

    Good luck!

  • Suspenseful Sentences

    The widely talented John-Paul Flintoff came this month to discuss his delightful writing and encouraged members to combine their talents for their writing. The agreed brief for this month’s competition was:

    Challenge your creativity and mastery of language by crafting a single, long periodic sentence that holds the reader in suspense until the last word. Inspired by the intricate styles of Virginia Woolf and Jonathan Swift, this competition invites you to weave a narrative that captivates and surprises.

    And the winners were…

    First place: ‘Suspended Sentence’ by Catherine Griffin

    Summoned by a bell, the girl wipes ash from her hands and climbs the twisted stair that leads from the dungeon depths of cellar-kitchen to the realms of light which to her are only a larger prison, and with every step her legs stiffen with dread of the punishment which must await her, for the summons can only mean her mistress has learned of her disobedience, of last night’s escape through the unlatched window, of the mysterious carriage which bore her to the palace, and since she has been beaten before for spilling a cup of tea, or falling asleep over her work, or for no reason at all, she can only imagine her mistress ’rage at this true rebellion, yet as she climbs, she hears again the music, the rustle of swirling silk, his voice, and the fear drops away, for those few hours of magic were worth every lash of the whip, every stroke of the cane, and at the top of the stair her head is high and she enters the room like a queen, to see, among all the familiar faces rapt in astonishment and dismay, him waiting for her — her prince.

    Second Place: ‘1944 Who Goes There’ by Val Harris

    I never dared to ask you if, in the hail and blitz of flying bombs when the earth blew up in brick and bone, and fires rose where you used to play, now seventeen years old, on guard, on top of a factory roof giving plane-spotting a whole new meaning, as all hell – searchlights, sirens, guns – were let loose to intercept the terror in the sky – the whine, the silence the plummet – a heartbeat waiting for the explosion and a twisting plume of smoke rising from the ruins that could have been the factory, your own home gone forever, I never dared to ask you, Dad, if you were so scared that you cried and wanted your mum?

    Third Place: ‘There’s A Cat Hiding In The Long Grass’ by Syd Meats

    There’s a cat hiding in the long grass silently meditating, its three-legged body stays still while its mind waltzes constantly with the questions that philosophers can’t answer, with a memory like an elephant with a notebook and a pencil, its eyes like binoculars track your every movement with the novels of Dostoevsky and a Walkman, smoking a cigarette with a devil-may-care attitude to the traffic on the bypass, it questions your morals with a compass and some Sellotape, tests Newton’s theories with an eggcup and a tennis ball and a map of Nicaragua and the works of Karl Marx, stalking rodents with a crossbow and a shopping list, inventing new uses for beeswax and a metronome from behind a Road Closed sign and a traffic cone, draped from head to toe in camouflage, but I know it’s there.

    And a huge well down to our highly commended entries:

    ‘Into The Cave’ by Charmian Steven

    ‘Deer’ by Julian Richardson

    ‘Having Arrived’ by Philip Evans

  • Table Talk – September 2024 competition results, adjudicated by Judith Heneghan

    The fantastic Hampshire’s own Judith Heneghan came along to discuss her new ‘Birdeye’, inspiring HWS members to consider tolerance and the importance of what they ask of others, bringing to life her incredibly ‘chari-table’ experiences. The competition brief for this month was:

    Imagine people gathering around a table. It might be to eat, play a game, hold a meeting…. anything. Write a self-contained scene or a short story of no more than 400 words set around a table. Make sure your characters interact. How they interact is up to you! Any genre.

    And the winners were…

    First place: ‘You are in a clearing…’ by Frank Carver

    Dave is the last to sit down at the table in the Student Union. He avoids eye contact with the others and makes a show of leafing through the dog-eared, handwritten pages of his character back-story. Beside him, Ellie sighs. her character exists only as neat columns of numbers printed on a single sheet. Statistics for her growing collection of weapons. At the head of the table, Andy glares over a cardboard partition adorned with dragons and wizards and clears his throat. 

    “Are we all ready? You are standing in a clearing in…” 

    Andy’s exposition is interrupted by a hiss and a yelp as Colin, seated on Ellie’s other side, opens a bottle of coke which fizzes over his hand onto the table.  

    Dave grabs his precious character papers and leaps backwards, collapsing in a tangle of chair legs. Next round the table from Colin, Steve laughs as he pulls out a grimy handkerchief and dabs at the spill. Ellie wrinkles her face in disgust. 

    Andy reaches into the wheely suitcase he brings to all these sessions and silently hands a roll of kitchen paper to Steve, who passes it to Colin, who wipes up the remaining liquid. Dave sits back in his place and Andy starts again. 

    “Right. You are standing in…” 

    Colin raises his hand. 

    “Um. what do I do with this?” 

    He nods towards the soggy ball of caffeinated paper in his other hand. 

    Andy waves in the direction of the bar. 

    “Find a bin somewhere. I don’t know.” 

    Colin gets up and leaves. Steve stands up a moment later. 

    “Actually. I need a piss break anyway.” 

    With two players away from the table, Dave turns to Andy. Words tumble from his mouth. 

    “Are we anywhere near the city of Elara? Thorfinn’s maternal grandmother came from there. There might be clues to the mystery of Thorfinn’s birthmark.” 

    Andy shakes his head. 

    “No. You are in the wilderness, standing in…” 

    Colin and Steve return, grinning. Steve has a pint of beer in a plastic glass. Colin has crisps. When they have sat down again, Andy holds up a hand for attention. 

    “No more interruptions! You are in a clearing in a forest. In the distance, a plume of smoke rises from a settlement to the east. Gathered in the clearing are a huddle of refugees from the destruction.” 

    Ellie rolls a handful of dice. 

    “I kill them.” 

    Second Place: ‘Fine Times and Tide Lines’ by Honey Stavonhagen

    ‘It’s fine.’  My eyes sweep across the watermelon belly my sister’s brought back from her gap year to the bare lips Mother is using to whisper these foreign words.  

    Fine?  Fine, does not belong at our table; fine is the thin, white cardboard bread left to die in the toast rack.  Fine does not punish.  Fine’s tail has no sting.  Our family words are golden fried dumplings, oval platters of sunshine ackee and painstakingly flaked saltfish.  No one has ever set a place for fine on our clear plastic tablecloth: no fines, no fails, no fuck-ups and yet here sits a fine, as though it belongs. 

    ‘We will be just fine.’ Grandpa murmurs, flitting his cataracts between the cricket and his emptying plate; his optimism as unusual as the water in his glass. 

    We, who are colourful, we are not fine.  We excel and exceed and expand.  We are too much if I’m honest, from the overfilled bras spilling onto the aunties’ laps, to the colourful cusses tumbling from the uncles’ rum-soaked lips.  Neither the laundry Grandma presses for pennies, nor the refrigerator’s clean, sparse shelves are fine.  I try to swallow the fine down, but it burns like chilli, beads my forehead with sweat before exploding into the bowl of devilled kidneys nesting by the napkins.    

    ‘That mongoose in her belly is as far from fine as a foetus within a foetus can be!’  My words rip the plastic cloth like broken china and the accusation on my fingertip spears my sister right between the eyes and they smart.  The Foetus, she with the brain a whole school year ahead of itself, she the emblem in our badge of honour, she who in ten days’ time should be the first of us to escape to university.  She with the belly now fit to burst. 

    ‘Don’t you worry, honey.’ The long slow smile Grandma spreads over the Foetus jars with the sharp glare she jabs at me.  Honey belongs in jars, not jaws, she’d told me once-upon-a-long-ago, when I’d dared to butter her up.   

    ‘Go study your books, child. Things are fine here.’  The words prickle my cheeks.  My belly may be flat and still and empty, but already my shoulders are heavy and my back aches.  I scrape up the hope from the table and fold it in my arms.  Grandma is right: feeling – imperfect – never – ends. 

    Third Place: ‘Body of Knowledge’ by Johnathan Reid

    Only an arm was visible as we surrounded our assigned table in formalin-laden silence. Its skin was thin and crinkled, like waxed paper without the crackle, and liver spots peppered it from stiff hand to chicken-skinned elbow. We’d drawn straws on who would uncover more. With a deep breath, Alex tugged once on the white plastic sheet, a young conjurer eyeing a potential upset. Her hesitancy revealed only a dimpled thigh, its weight beached on the table’s stainless surface from months of leaden gravity.

    More tugs exposed a side of ribs, the chest mercifully still. From it a tumescence of flesh sagged sideways, its sunken nipple puckered and purple. Amar regarded this with a fixed gaze, abstaining from meeting the eyes of the living. We’d met only last week, with few taboos preventing the jostle to find new friendships for our long endeavours. Now, with empty notebooks and stomachs filled with steak and kidney pie – the canteen staff’s annual jest – we hesitated at this ancient human threshold, barely two decades of life within each of us.

    From curiosity or trepidation, Charlie yanked the remaining cover away like a bull-baiting matador. Alex gasped as there she lay, the heart of our curriculum exposed, immodest yet deserving our immense respect. The sky-blue flannel which covered her face echoed its contours and her grey hair was brushed with care. Any instruction filling our heads evaporated in the unquestioned sanctity that enveloped the scene.

    The woman laid out on our table had postponed her final departure to seed knowledge inside our curious minds. But uncovering the heart of a curriculum meant teasing her deceased body apart in utter ignorance of her long life. We would never know where her bunion’d feet had trod, what music had entertained her ears or sights had saddened her eyes. We would never know whose breath had filled her lungs, if love had swelled her heart, or if children had suckled her breasts. But, from this moment, we knew our table was hers.

    I untied the green bow of my dissection kit and unrolled it at her pale feet, its pockets full of sharp, virgin steel. As Alex stroked her hair, Charlie pulled an empty plastic bucket from the shelf below. It was labelled with her table’s number, but no name. We could never know her name, even though my memory of her cut deeper than any student scalpel.

    And a huge well down to our highly commended entries:

    ‘Unstable Table’ by Viv Smith

    ‘The Vice Chancellor’ by Sam Christie

    ‘The Birthday Party in the Orchard’ by Wendy Falla