Everyone - many, many thanks to you all for the congratulations.
Emma

Congrats to Emma

Bridport is very tough. I've been there three times but only made the last 50 this year




Hi, I'd suggest that in comps with 5000 limits it's usually tougher to do well
with very short stories. But I got second in one Bridport with a 4000 worder
and second there with a story just over 2000 words


I usually tell my students that 3K in a 5K comp is OK, but there again
I was editor's choice in fish (5K limit) with a piece just 1200 words long.


Alex

Emma, the point you make about a second story concerns me.

Last year I got second, very nice too, but at the dinner I was told I'd had
another story PULLED from the judge's list (because they only let one
go through).

Oh I said, I thought they were anonymous?

Well, yes, the guy said, but we recognised your font, page layout etc.

Then he said he PREFERRED the one pulled. Point is, who is
to say that the pulled one might not have been a winner?


alex

Alex, I did wonder about that. He didn't quite say, 'Russian Tea hadn't got through because Maura's Arm did', but I imagine that is what happens - maybe it's fairer, in giving more entrants at least one chance, or may it isn't. Though I can't be the only one of the entrants working in 11pt Times, with a 16pt heading can I?

And I loved your story in the 2003 Anthology.

Best
Emma

I was told, quite specifically by the gentleman that I had a story PULLED.

I do understand that individuals can be limited to one prize in a competition
and I guess there's also the problem that the top fifty might be filled with only
30 writers. But then this begs the question, why bother to enter more than one story?

I usually enter three stories in big comps (at different times)

I raised this issue with the organisers and was told it was an error and that
it wouldn't happen again. (COUGH).

Now I worry. Does this mean I will have to enter from different addresses
with differnt names, using very different manuscript formats, and then (theoretically)
i might win more than one prize?

I don't mind what rules a competition has as long as they are transparent!


Alex

PS Thank-you for your kind comments on my 2003 story. You and other readers might
like to know that it got nowhere in Bridport the year before and took three years to place!

You may have read elsewhere on the site that I have launched
a magazine called "The Seventh Quark"

One of the features is to show beginning and intermediate writers
examples of winning fiction. To that end we will be contacting competition
prize-winners to see if they would be willing to reprint in "Quark" and possibly
write short notes about how the story came into being.

I say "winning" but the top ten in Bridport beat close on 4000 other entries
so if anyone (hi Emma!) has such a story and would like to contact me
by email, please do! alex.keegan@btconnect.com

There are three comps associated with the magazine (to help fund it)

and the whackiest is "Frantic Flash!"




alex

Emma's Bridport story, and notes on its genesis
will be in the first Seventh Quark along with work
by Steve Almond, George Saunders, Alice Elliot Dark
John Ravenscroft, Jim Crace, Gina Ochsner etc


AK