On Sunday 22nd November the annual H G Wells short story competition held its award ceremony – via Zoom. The competition was inaugurated in 2009 at the behest of Reginald Turnill, a former special correspondent for the BBC. Reg had covered the Apollo Space programme for the BBC and met and interviewed a number of the key figures, including Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong.
Reg, who as a young reporter had also interviewed H G Wells not long before the writer’s death, wanted to set up a competition in his name, primarily to encourage youngsters to write imaginative fiction. Reg passed away in 2013 at the age of 98, and Margaret his wife in 2016 at a staggering 102, but the competition set up in their names lives on. It began as a modest local competition to celebrate Wells (who lived in Sandgate near Folkestone towards the end of the nineteenth century) but is now open to, and attracts, entries from around the globe.
Every year the competition is launched in April with a new theme. This year’s theme was ‘Vision’. After serving on the judging panel for a number of years (and reading a great many stories, some brilliant, some not so brilliant) I decided to enter the competition myself. My story, ‘Afterimages’, was shortlisted, and though it did not win, made it into the anthology, so I’m very chuffed to see it in print. The worthy winners were ‘The Invisible Zoo’ by Tabitha Rubens (Junior category) and ‘Curiosities of the Eye’ by Susannah Rickards (Senior category); congratulations to them both, and to the other anthologised writers.
Copies of the anthology Vision, edited by Liz Joyce and Tony Scofield, can be ordered from www.trencavel.co.uk or from Amazon (though apparently trencavel.co.uk is a bit cheaper!). Anthologies from most of the years the competition has been running are also still available.
The theme for next year’s competition was also announced: ‘Mask’. Hmm – intriguing…