GGBT Creative Writing Awards Winners 2013

'The wind rocked the car, and spray broke across the traffic-lanes...

'and misted the seaward window...'

The Starting Point

In the Graham Greene Birthplace Trust Creative Writing Awards 2013 prose writers had to begin with the following words and to continue from there:

‘The wind rocked the car, and spray broke across the traffic-lanes and misted the seaward window…’

Screenplay writers and Playwrights had to embed this line somewhere in their texts.

The words of the Starting Point were taken from Graham Greene’s satirical novel of espionage, Our Man in Havana (1958), though as always there was no requirement to allude to the source nor to mimic Greene’s style.

Winners

Best Prose Fiction Writer: JD Casteel for ‘Corrosion’

Best Prose Thriller Writer: Peter Guttridge for ‘God’s Lonely Man’

Best Prose Travel Writer: Peter Guttridge for ‘One Day in Caracas’

Other Categories

Prizes were not awarded in the other categories.

Commended

Fergal Casey is commended for his entry ‘The Bungalows of Old Hollywood’ in the category of Playwright.

The Entry

In this international competition entries arrived from writers in England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Spain and USA, from as close as Greene’s home town of Berkhamsted and from as far away as San Francisco, California. The judges would like to thank all the entrants for their keen interest and good writing.

Best Entries

The best entries made good use of the Starting Point, which was made to seem an integral part of the writing, as opposed to an irrelevant opening (or middle) sentence, and these entries were well suited to the category for which they had been entered. They were written imaginatively and accurately, and they focused on an interesting and thoughtful situation. Some entries were free of error.

Less Successful Entries

Some less successful entries made little or no use of the Starting Point, or they were unfocused or tried to include too many ideas. Some entries would have benefitted from more consideration of the requirements or the disciplines of the category for which texts had been entered. Many entries needed more careful proof-reading and greater awareness of grammatical and syntactical conventions.

Prize Giving 2013

Prizes for this year’s Awards will be presented at the Graham Greene International Festival in Deans’ Hall (Berkhamsted School, Berkhamsted, England, UK) on Saturday 28th September 2013.

GGBT Creative Writing Awards 2014

The Starting Points and the Rules for the competitions in 2014 will be announced at the Prize Giving for the Awards 2013 (above).