Tag Archives: contest winners

Mitchell wins 2022 Poetry Competition with “Female Dedication”

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Jenny Mitchell has won the 2022 Shooter Poetry Competition with her powerful familial poem “Female Dedication”.

The poem revolves around hardships experienced by the narrator’s grandmother (as well as her mother), and won Shooter’s prize for its unflinching, spare language and compelling intensity.

Mitchell has previously won the Poetry Book Awards and her debut collection, Her Lost Language, was named a “Poetry Book for 2019” by Poetry Wales. Mitchell’s second collection, Map of a Plantation, is on the syllabus at Manchester Metropolitan University and her latest collection, Resurrection of a Black Man, was chosen as a Poetry Kit Book of the Month.

A very different type of poem, “Unrequited” by Cara Lowther, came runner-up in Shooter’s 2022 Poetry Competition. Judges enjoyed Lowther’s adept handling of the villanelle form and the poem’s deliciously bittersweet tone. An English student at Warwick University, Lowther contributes regularly to student newspaper The Boar and plans to pursue a career in journalism following graduation.

Both poems are available to read online, and Mitchell’s winning poem will also appear in Shooter’s On the Body issue, which will be published this spring.

To subscribe to Shooter’s print edition or place an advance order for the On the Body issue, please visit the Subscriptions page.

Witch trials inspire 2022 story comp winner

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Lynette Creswell has won the 2022 Shooter Short Story Competition with “Malkin Tower”, a tale inspired by the Pendle witch trials of 1612.

Shooter’s competition readers and judge, editor Melanie White, were quickly caught up by Creswell’s suspenseful storytelling and vivid 17th-century setting. In an email, Creswell wrote, “I felt compelled to write the story after hearing the true events of Jannet Devices, a local nine-year-old girl who in the 17th century sent ten innocent souls to their deaths.”

Creswell, who lives in Lincolnshire, has published several fantasy and romance novels (including Sinners of Magic, the first of a trilogy), as well as a children’s book, Hoglets’ Christmas Magic. Her story “A Slice of Cake” won the Society of Women Writers and Journalists’ short story competition in 2019.

Dean Gessie came runner-up in Shooter’s story competition with “Nobody Knows How Much You Love Him”, a tale about a child’s illness skilfully interwoven with metafictional allusions. Gessie, a Canadian author and poet, has won numerous international awards for his writing, including this year’s Aesthetica Creative Writing Award for poetry. His short story collection, Anthropocene, won an Eyelands Book Award in Greece and the Uncollected Press Prize in Maryland, USA.

One story also earned an honourable mention this year: Jeremy Smith’s “Pulpit Politics”, for its deft handling of topical immigration themes. Smith, a charity administrator who lives in London, has been published recently in Popshot Quarterly.

Both “Malkin Tower” and “Nobody Knows How Much You Love Him” are available to read online, and “Malkin Tower” will also appear in Shooter’s forthcoming Out West issue. Congratulations to this year’s winning writers!

 

Baur wins 2021 Poetry Competition with “Status Update”

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Dominic Baur, a former history professor, has won the 2021 Shooter Poetry Competition with “Status Update”.

The poem earned first place for its layered allusions and linguistic associations, weaving together threads of meaning to conjure a strong sense of underlying narrative. “Status Update” is not only Baur’s first contest win, but his first poem to be published. Although he has previously published academic work in numerous journals, Baur began writing poetry only in retirement. “Perhaps I chose the wrong career,” he joked in an email.

Isabella Mead, who landed second place with her beautifully evocative poem “Great Aunt Audrey”, also came runner-up in Shooter’s 2018 Poetry Competition. She won the 2021 Julian Lennon Prize, the 2020 Bedford International Poetry Competition, and the 2019 Wells International Poetry Competition. She was a 2021 finalist in the Brotherton Prize for which her poetry will be published in an anthology with Carcanet. 

While “Status Update” will appear in print in Shooter’s forthcoming Dark Arts issue, both poems are currently available to read online, along with other past winners.

To subscribe to Shooter’s print edition or place an advance order for the Dark Arts issue, please visit the Subscriptions page.