In an email last Friday from the Director of the National Short Story Week, our school was commended for having “once again, done outstandingly well” in the annual National Short Story Week Young Writer competition. Each year, schools across the country are invited to submit 1000-word short stories from their Year 7 and Year 8 students for this prestigious competition. The best stories from each of the four categories – Year 8 Boy, Year 8 Girl, Year 7 Boy and Year 7 Girl – are gathered together and published in an anthology, available in paperback and eBook, with all proceeds going to the Teenage Cancer Trust. This year, the title of the story was The Lie, and we submitted ten stories. Imagine our delight when we learnt that Tom Mulley (8P) had not only won the Year 8 Boys category, but had been judged by author Joe Craig to be the ‘best of the best’ and therefore the National Short Story Week Young Writer 2016!
Tom’s story will be recorded by an actor for the NSSW website and will, of course, be included in the 2016 anthology, published this November. Joining him in the anthology will be Freddie Corrin (8P) and Lewis Hoogstad (7W) who were runners-up in their respective categories. Many congratulations to all three boys, and also to Oliver Li and Luke Jensen-Jones, whose stories were highly commended.