New kid. The Locker. Catch and Release. Taste of Fear. Why Choose Me? Shootout at The Royal York. River Wild. Sacrifice. Narcissus. Bearfoot. Bear Island. Unexpected Delivery. Quarry. Adventures of an Event Planner – Scared in the South. A City Break. The drop. Gretchen Tries To Make The Right Choice. Periphery. An incident on the line. Two for the price of one.
Such are the titles of finalist stories in our latest ‘Wild Atlantic Writing Awards’ (WAWA) competition on the theme of ‘danger,’ with the names of the authors, and ultimate winners in the flash fiction and creative nonfiction categories, named below.
This is the 9th edition of WAWA and though our judging panel is composed of a very experienced group of people from widely different literary and national backgrounds, the challenge of choosing finalists, and indeed the two winners, is never easy. In fact, the judges often report that it seems to get harder not only as quality of writing improves but also as innovation of ideas increases.
Subjects for this particular competition ranged widely, from a berry-picking encounter with a bear to cases of domestic abuse, a police shooting gone wrong, tragedy by fire and risky adventures on land and sea.
We’d like to thank everyone for entering our competition. Doing so takes courage. In our eyes, you are all winners and we thank you for granting us such immense reading pleasure. Please continue to do so.
In fact, to fully show our appreciation in view of our upcoming 10th WAWA competition in this the 10th anniversary of Ireland Writing Retreat, we would like to offer you the opportunity to choose the theme for our next competition.
Working together
Sometimes in life major crises present golden opportunities.
This was the case with the launch of ‘Wild Atlantic Writing Awards’ (WAWA), which we are proud to say will see its 10th successful edition launched next month.
With the onset of Covid we here at Ireland Writing Retreat, like all organisations worldwide, found ourselves extremely frustrated, simply unable to host our usual enjoyable week-long get-togethers with fellow wordsmiths in beautiful locations in Ireland and France.
Not wanting to lose touch with our faithful ‘Retreat Friends’ (see here how you can become a Friend and receive latest news), we brainstormed on ways to help us keep in touch.
Thus WAWA was born.
What better way to connect an international writing retreat even more strongly to writing, we decided, than to establish an international writing competition with both fiction and nonfiction categories and decent prize money.
We are absolutely delighted with the response so far to an idea born out of difficulty and want to take this opportunity to thank not only those who have attended our retreats but also those who have participated in our WAWA competitions, special gratitude this year as we celebrate our first decade of operation.
Throughout the life of WAWA, we have given thoughtful consideration to prompts we thought would light the fuse of creative inspiration. Including the latest competition with ‘danger’ as its theme, we’ve also selected such subjects as ‘change,’ ‘hope,’ ‘beauty,’ ‘time,’ ‘love’ and ‘Nature.’ For our first competition we actually chose the word ‘writing’ itself.
In the full realisation that careful choice of title is one of the keys to success in the highly-competitive writing field, we also tested participants in this particular skill, by imposing a condition that writers must include a three-word title with their stories.
Now, as we celebrate the occasion of our 10th WAWA competition with you in this the 10th year of Ireland Writing Retreat, we would like you, dear Friends, to select the theme for our next competition.
Give some thought to a theme (a word or a phrase) you think would awaken the Muse and grant a challenging experience to all your fellow writers. Email ONE THEME ONLY to irelandwritingretreat@gmail.com using the subject WAWA 10, on or before Tuesday October 15, 2024 and we will select the one we consider the best among the ideas we receive.
The winner will receive our branded totem bag, a 245 euro discount (10 percent) to any of our 2025 writing retreats and their name mentioned in our announcement story.
Let’s work together to raise our communal enjoyment of the act of reading and writing.
Many congratulations to all the finalists and indeed to everyone who entered the competition. For those who failed to make the final, please don’t give up. Remember, if you want to be a writer, write.
If you want to know why your story did not make it as a winner in our latest competition, you can receive personalised feedback for as little as 49 euro (standard costs 79 euro) to help you enter it in other competitions. This special offer is valid only for stories entered in the WAWA competition on the theme of ‘Danger’ and ends on Thursday October 31, 2024. Just send us an email with the subject PERSONALISED FEEDBACK.
Winners and finalists (in alphabetical order) are:
Creative nonfiction
Finalists: Brenda Lightle with ‘Catch and release,’ Catherine Bell with ‘Taste of fear,’ Ida Linehan Young with ‘Why choose me?’ Judy Holm with ‘Shootout at the Royal York,’ Kathy Judge with ‘River wild,’ Margaret Lynch with ‘Sacrifice,’ Maureen Coleman with ‘Narcissus,’ Shannon Anima with ‘Bearfoot,’ Shelley Arnfield with ‘New kid’ and Viktoria Valenta with ‘Bear Island.’
Winner: Shelley Arnfield with ‘New kid’
Flash fiction
Finalists: Christine Bahls with ‘Unexpected delivery,’ David Kipling with ‘Quarry,’ Emily Buffum with ‘Adventures of an event planner – scared in the South,’ Fiona Dignan with ‘A city break,’ Kieran Marsh with ‘The drop,’ Laura Theis with ‘Gretchen tries to make the right choice,’ Maggie Thomas with ‘Periphery,’ Nicole Scobie with ‘The locker,’ Ruth Keely with ‘An incident on the line’ and Terry Kerins with ‘Two for the price of one.’
Winner: Nicole Scobie with ‘The locker’
The winners will receive 500 euro in cash or a voucher worth 1,000 euro redeemable towards any one of our retreats of their choice in 2025.
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