Exeter Writers

Hello Lucy, great job winning this year's Devon Prize with The Shuck . We were particularly struck by how well you captured the sense of place on Dartmoor, a place we all love very much.  Tell us how you felt when you found out you’d won. It was brilliant to hear I’d won. I’ve been wrestling with short story-writing for years, so it was lovely to feel like I was finally getting somewhere with it. Short story writing is an art-form in itself, and nowhere near as easy as it looks!  Tell us about The Shuck. Where did you get the idea? I love Dartmoor and all its associated folklore. I was reading up about the Shuck a while back, and loved the image of this hulking black dog with red eyes, stalking hapless travellers across the moors. Plus, as a city girl, I wanted to explore that tension between town and country.  We received lots of stories this year outside of the usual genres and it’s great to be able to award a prize to a thriller story. What advice do you have for write...

Hi Frances, you won third prize in our competition this year with your story The Weird Event . What were you doing when you found out? How did you feel? I was walking home from town and I checked my phone. I didn’t believe it, and had to stop under an awning to read it properly. (It was raining. I live near Manchester.) I felt very happy, but also worried that someone would email later to say that it was all a mistake.   It’s very unusual for us to receive sci-fi stories, so it was refreshing to read not just a different genre, but a story with a strong female lead. Tell us about your story. Where did you get the idea to write it? I like reading sci-fi. I loved John Wyndham when I was younger, and I also enjoy Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, William Gibson and Iain M. Banks. The idea came from a picture of a probe landing on the far side of the Moon. I liked the idea of the probe up there and ‘seeing’ things that we could never see for ourselves. Lynn is based on friends of mine who...

Hello Richard Hooton and welcome to Exeter Writers Short Story Competition Winners Hall of Fame. Congratulations on winning second place with your story The Homecoming . Tell us a little about yourself and where in the world you hail from. Why did you enter the Exeter Short Story Competition? Hi Jessica and thank you. I’m a former journalist now working as a senior communications officer and I live in Mossley in Greater Manchester.  I’ve been writing in my spare time for several years. Around five years ago I began writing short stories and entering them into competitions as way of getting published and developing my work. I’d read about a few writers who recommended it as a good way of improving your writing by testing what works and that by following feedback you would start to see publishing success.  I first entered the Exeter Writers Short Story Competition in 2017. In the first two years I tried, I didn’t manage to have success. However, I was longlisted two years ago, s...

The winner of the first prize for Exeter Writers' Short Story Competition 2021 was LM Rees with her thought-provoking Stand Up, which you can find in the Winning Stories section of the blog. If you haven't read it yet, we highly recommend you do.  Exeter Writers member and blog manager, Jessica Triana, speaks to LM Rees to get the author lowdown: Hello LM Rees… Should I call you LM or do you have a first name I can call you by? Hi Jessica. You can call me Lucy. Well done on winning our first prize with Stand Up this year. How does it feel to be an Exeter Writers Competition Winner? Thank you very much. It feels wonderful being an Exeter Writers competition winner. I am absolutely delighted. Racism and bullying are very sensitive topics. Where did you get your inspiration to write this story? I’d have to go way back to when I was in school, learning about the Holocaust for A level history. I remember being absolutely baffled as to how this was ever allowed to happen, not just t...