By Trish Bowman
Yeppoon Town Hall was a buzz of activity on Saturday morning 3 June when the Capricorn Coast Writers Festival officially opened with a performance from visiting slam poet, Joel McKerrow, and an announcement of the 2023 student short story competition finalists.
Twenty-four student finalists from the Livingstone Shire were selected from 86 entries written by primary and secondary students.
The students’ stories will be compiled to create an anthology of short stories.
This was the Capricorn Coast Writers Festival’s second short story competition sponsored by the Rotary Club of Yeppoon.
The theme for 2023 was Islands. Students were challenged to write a story that involved the theme and met narrative writing conventions, namely structure, characterization and grammar.
The competition’s judges, local authors, teachers and librarians praised the standard of the students’ work with one judge writing in his feedback, “Entry five showed a maturity and understanding of the writing process that is unexpected in one of this age.”
The stories ranged from an encounter with the Keppel Beast to a story about an island eating its
occupants.
Capricorn Coast Writers Festival Committee member, James Manning, said it was amazing to see all the students represented at the announcement of awards.
“Only 1 student could not make it and this student’s parents were there to accept the award,” Mr Manning said.
“There were two primary categories and two senior categories. In each category, five students received highly commended awards and there was one winner selected.
“In the senior categories there were also two students who received special mention from the judges for their writing excellence.
“All of these stories will be compiled in the 2023 anthology of student short stories.
“The finalists will be the first to receive a free copy of the completed anthology.
“It will also be available to schools and families as exemplar of student short story writing.”
The winners were Lucy Hock, from Taranganba State School, Thys van Rooyan from St Benedict’s Catholic Primary School, Micaela Tait from Jubilee Christian College and Brooke McCleeland from St Ursula’s College, Yeppoon.
Mr Manning said some of these young authors wasted no time in using their gift voucher prize to purchase books from the QBD store at the festival.
“Olive Allem from Sacred Heart Catholic Primary, who was not selected as a finalist, attended the open microphone event with Joel McKerrow on Sunday,” he said.
“She stunned the audience with a reading of her original poem.
“A literary agent, publisher and two published authors (invited presenters at the festival who were in the audience) congratulated the Year 5 student personally.”
Mr Manning who ran the student short story competition said he hopes this poem can be included in the anthology.
“Olive’s poem and her confident delivery earned it a place in the anthology and also demonstrated the student’s determination to be an author.”
The anthology will be made available as soon as possible.