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