Dani Redd wins our prose competition!

Congratulations to Dani Redd who has won Words And Women’s first writing competition with her wonderful short story My Sister’s Haircut.

Dani grew up in the South West of England, studied English Literature at Queen Mary's University,  and is currently a student on the MA Creative Writing Course at Norwich’s UEA. Dani has been shortlisted and placed in several short fiction competitions and most recently was longlisted for The Lightship Short Story Prize. She is currently working on her first novel, which is set on a fictional island within the arctic circle.

Dani wins £600, membership to Words And Women and her winning story will appear in our inaugural anthology published by Unthank Books, which will be launched on International Women’s Day, 8^th March, this year.

Our competition was open to women living in the East of England over the age of 16. We asked for prose – fiction or non-fiction – under 3,000 words long, and are pleased to say we received scripts from writers based all over the region, for example in Aldeburgh, Beccles, Cambridge, Chelmsford, Colchester, Norwich, Sheringham,  and Westcliffe-on-Sea. The 176 scripts covered a variety of subjects: dogs, art, death, rain, growing-up, dancing, birthdays, sex, writing, God, herrings, laundry, war. They were set not just in this region but all over the world – USA, Italy, France, India, Africa, Australia – and we received as many non-fiction scripts as fiction.

The organisers of Words And Women, Lynne Bryan and Belona Greenwood, were the judges and spent most evenings in December reading the entries. All entries were judged anonymously and the unveiling of the names of the winning writers at the end of the process was very exciting!

Dani is our worthy overall winner. There are also 20 other writers whose scripts will be published in our anthology. Their names are listed below, along with 6 writers whose work is also commended.

Over the next few days Words And Women will be posting photos and short biographies of all of our successful writers. Also Words And Women will be busily preparing the anthology for publication. More news about this will be posted on our blog in due course.

Finally, Words And Women would like to say thank you to everybody who entered the competition. The quality of work was outstanding.  

The winning entries:

FIRST PRIZE OF £600, WORDS AND WOMEN MEMBERSHIP, PUBLICATION IN THE INAUGURAL WORDS AND WOMEN ANTHOLOGY =

Dani Redd for her story My Sister’s Haircut. Dani currently lives in Norwich, Norfolk.

WORDS AND WOMEN MEMBERSHIP, PUBLICATION IN THE INAUGURAL WORDS AND WOMEN ANTHOLOGY =

Deborah Arnander – Lion Bastard - (Norwich, Norfolk)

Layn Feldman – Taken For Granted – (Beccles, Suffolk)

Caroline Jackson – The Call - (Cambridge, Cambridgeshire)

Kim Sherwood -  Quick Brown Fox - (Norwich, Norfolk)

Rowan Whiteside - Persephone - (Norwich, Norfolk)

PUBLICATION IN THE INAUGURAL WORDS AND WOMEN ANTHOLOGY =

Sarah Baxter – The Girl I Left Behind – (Colchester, Essex)

Susan Dean – Dreams – (Brandon, Suffolk)

Anni Domingo – Empire Girl – (Chatteris, Cambridgeshire)

Wendy Gill – The Deal – (Potters Bar, Hertfordshire)

Alice Kent – Len’s Whole Life - (Norwich, Norfolk)

C.G. Menon – A Time For Rain – (Cambridge, Cambridgeshire)

Lily Meyer – Wellfleet - (Norwich, Norfolk)

Patricia Mullin – The Sitting - (Norwich, Norfolk)

Karen O’Connor – Happy Families – (Chelmsford, Essex)

Judith Omasete – My Dog Is Boss - (Norwich, Norfolk)

Bridget Read – Appetition - (Norwich, Norfolk)

Elizabeth Reed – This Picture Will Be Hidden - (Norwich, Norfolk)

Beth Settle – Violence, tranquility - (Norwich, Norfolk)

Nedra Westwater – The Stairway - (Norwich, Norfolk)

Lois Williams – For The Records – (Dersingham, Norfolk)

COMMENDED =

Amrita Brown - The Wake - (Norwich, Norfolk)

Karen Evans - Chasing Sophie Hannah – (Sheringham, Norfolk)

Melissa Fu - On Sante Fe Baldy - (Haslingfield,Cambridgeshire)

Maggie Ling - Running Away – (Aldeburgh, Suffolk)

Madeline Parsons - Trying To Hold The River – (Westcliffe-on-Sea, Essex)

Pia Ghosh Roy - Mrs Sen – (Cambridge, Cambridgeshire)