Many successes

My KSP buddy Sonia Helbig has won second prize in the fourth quarter of the Writers of the Future Contest. Huge congrats to Sonia. Another friend, Ian McHugh, has also won a prize in the third quarter of the same contest. Ian used to be a member of KSP, but now lives in Canberra. Great to see people's hard work start to pay off. Best wishes and many more successes to you both.

I'm also feeling chuffed as UWA has offered me a scholarship to do an MA in Creative Writing, which I'll most likely upgrade to a PhD at the end of 2008. All this means, of course, is that now I absolutely must finish my novel, so I'd better get writing.

A story finished

It feels good to finish a story. This latest one I've been working on for nearly a year. I write it, put it away for a few weeks, rewrite some, put it away again. This week, after sending it to my writers' group for a crit, I played with it some more and at last it feels finished. And I'm proud of it.

Thanks Helen and Satima for your input. It really really helped. The story is on the first leg of doing it's rounds, so I'm hoping.

2007 KSP Science Fiction & Fantasy Award

Huge congratulations to my KSP buddies Helen Venn and Sonia Helbig for their successes in this year's KSP award, with Helen taking First Prize and a Highly Commended and Sonia a Commended. List of winners as posted at Helen's blog:

Shire of Mundaring National Young Writers' Awards

1st place Melissa Wellam (ACT) The Succubus
2nd place Monica Revy (WA) The Day of Reckoning

Commended
Stephanie Wong (WA) Unfolding Plots and Story Lines
(Gingerbread)

Open Section

1st place Helen Venn (WA) The Healing
2nd place Susan Wardle (NSW) The Chance

Highly Commended
Helen Venn (WA) Surrogate

Commended
B.J. Thomason Uptoun Wells
Sonia Helbig (WA) Trillion Dollar Baby
M. LeGuier (WA) Deathwatch
Monica Carroll (ACT) Dog Luck

Congratulations to everyone. I look forward to seeing your stories in print.