After demonstrating their craft and competing against their peers, 10 local authors have officially been named winners of the Peg Baillie Memorial Amateur Writing Contest.
This was the third year of the contest, hosted by the Brock Township Public Library. According to library staff, it was the biggest year yet.
“Our third year running resulted in the highest number of participants yet! We were very encouraged by the response we received from the community; it was wonderful to see how many amateur writers took up the challenge of either trying something completely new or honing writing skills in the making,” says Lori Mitchell, Coordinator of Library Services and Marketing.
“Writing a short story with a word limit of 1500 is quite challenging as the author is required to pull all the aspects of a longer story or novel together in a much shorter and tighter format.”
The official winners are as follows:
Junior Category
- Brooklyn Lewis, for ‘In and Out’
- Jenna Dingman, for ‘Asylum’
- Christian Lovering, for ‘Game Over’
Teen Category
- Jory McConkey, for ‘Final Thoughts’
- Margaret Huntley, for ‘Coming Home’
- Lindsay Boilard, for ‘An Irish Heart Never Leaves’ and Hannah Watson, for ‘Christopher’s Key’
Adult Category
- Helen Hrebik, for ‘Snow Flurries’
- Peggy DeFinney, for ‘My Name is Bella!’
- Geraldine More, for ‘Picconaire Land’
Mitchell says all entrants should be proud of their efforts.
“Setting a compelling theme and engaging the reader with the characters within these parameters can be tricky,” she notes.
“All of the contestants did a superb job attempting this skill and though our judges were limited to choosing first, second and third standings, Brock Township Public Library considers all of our entrants winners!”
