I was very honoured to be asked to judge this years SNAP Awards by the creative writing faculty at University of Suffolk. The standard of the shortlist was extremely high and making a decision was very hard but I finally decided on three excellent short stories:
SNAP winning entry by Anya Page - An Abandoned Airfield | University of Suffolk (uos.ac.uk) by Anya Page (MA History)
Reading this piece made me feel as I often do when walking through the East Anglian landscape: that I was traversing time. I like the way the piece is multi-sensory, we can see, hear and smell what has come before. I also enjoyed the prose; it is paired back but not austere, still allowing for detail.
SNAP runner-up entry by Jayd Green - North Sea, Over Night | University of Suffolk (uos.ac.uk) by Jayd Green (PhD Creative Writing)
This piece has such a bleak beauty to it. It covers hours, yet the careful, clean prose builds suspense, creeping terror and the horror of the next day. I enjoyed the choice of the positioning of the words of the page too, short stories in themselves, that create the effect of a call and response in the reader's own thoughts.
SNAP highly-commended entry by Muriel Moore-Smith - Fire in the Sky | University of Suffolk (uos.ac.uk) by Muriel Moore-Smith (PhD Creative Writing)
I loved the sense of place and character in this piece. The heat and the pace of the boy running was beautifully evoked. Some beautiful imagery too; I loved 'he dry air has been concertinaed'.
Congratulations to Anya, Jayd and Muriel and thank you to University of Suffolk Creative Writing for asking me to judge and host a very fun workshop on 'Writing East Anglia Through Time.'
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