We're delighted to announce the stories that have made it to the short list of the Adult category of the inaugural Queenstown Writers Festival Short Story Competition.
Dr Maxine Alterio has been given the task of whittling down the entries and ultimately choosing the winner. Maxine was one of our featured writers in 2019 – this year she's back for more, as both competition judge and interviewing Tess Redgrave and Sandra Arnold about writing historical fiction.
The large number of entries didn't make things easy for Maxine: "The majority of stories entered in this category were of a high quality, making the task of selecting a short list very difficult. However, after rigorous consideration, I narrowed the entries down to nine."
Here are the short-listed entries. We can't tell you who the writers were just yet...judging in all categories of the competition is done blind so everyone gets a fair chance. But hopefully you'll recognise your title if you're one of the ones to progress!
This is a picture of love
Little boxes
The very bones
Settling the score
Kārearea alone
Beaufort Wind Scale
Saturday morning
Dog tired
Hooked
The winner and place getters of all three competition categories (adult, high school and primary school) will be announced on 6 November 2020. Check out the programme for how to get tickets for all events at the festival, which runs from 5 to 8 November 2020.