The EcoSanta Short Story Competition 2022 Results
The EcoSanta Short Story Competition 2022 attracted 32 entries, one in Arabic.
The four short listed finalists are:
A Song in the Sky by Peter Poole
A present for the future by Helen Browning
The call for the wild by Andrew Krey
Fixing Christmas Time by Richard Knight
The Joint First Prize winners are:
Fixing Christmas Time by Richard Knight
and
A Song in the Sky by Peter Poole
Judges Comments on the winners
Story is not a message, a lecture, an interesting narrative line, or a poem.
Fixing Christmas time
For classic short story structure which keeps the reader asking ‘What happens next?’ Fixing Christmas Time is exemplary. This story ticks a lot of boxes. Full of action and dialogue, it’s fast-moving, with an instantly relatable style. Subtextually, these interest-holding qualities are backed by masses of behind-the-scenes female influence.
A Song in the Sky
A Song in the Sky fits the general category of a plotless interior story, more usually encountered within the literary genre. Deeply interconnected, it’s a gentle, thoughtful story, heart-led. It champions the next level of a consciousness-change towards the planet, not just a culture-behavioural one.
A present for the future
A present for the future is a beautifully illustrated high-energy story in classic Christmas style, well deserving of publication.
The call for the wild
The call for the wild’s upbeat, modern involvement of children pro-environmentally takes a strong problem-solving stance, moving things forward.
General comments on the entries to the 2022 competition
The EcoSanta short stories involved more of our modern real-world aspects; people and institutions with environmental agendas. This can be seen as a move towards greater interconnectivity between traditional Christmas spirit and the movers and shakers of the modern world. It can also be seen as the start of a reinvention of magic realism as a literary genre. Cynicism, even justifiable cynicism, and the Christmas spirit don’t make great bed-fellows though.
Humorous tongue-in-cheek stories are much in evidence this year. While hope, love, life, miracles and cultural change are on the modern agenda, the EcoSanta Short Story Competition favours problem-solving, potentially transformative actions and behaviours, using the short story format. It’s a tight brief.
Aim of Competition
Green Stories partnered with Ecologisers to bring you a green writing competition with a Christmas theme!
Ecologisers are the Young People’s International Anti-litter and Environmental Charity. They have a ten-year project to publicise, promote and popularise ‘EcoSanta’ as the Children’s Environmental Champion of the future. Furthermore, to do this by any and all means that come to the creative heart and imaginative mind. The annual EcoSanta Short Story Competition is one such project.
Length and Eligibility: The EcoSanta Short Story Competition is open to ALL for a short story of up to 1,000 words. People from any nationality can submit, as long as the story is in English and has not been published elsewhere.
The theme for the 2022 EcoSanta Short Story Competition was: How EcoSanta makes the transition to this new identity of becoming the Children’s Ecological Champion in everyone’s mind. What does he do? How does this happen? Is it something EcoSanta does himself? Is a child or children responsible for EcoSanta’s meteoric rise to the top of the Global Eco-Heroes tree? Or does some outside agency cause a magical transformation of the public image of dear old Santa? You decide! Don’t make it too easy for EcoSanta! Otherwise, there will be no exciting story to tell!
Next year we may consider an Eco Santa Christmas card competition if we can get a charity to partner with us to sell the best entries. We’d like to reclaim Santa for the environment rather than excess consumption!
Prize: £100 for the winner
For any questions relating to the EcoSanta Short Story competition contact Ecologisers on gaiadance@btinternet.com.
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You can find out more about Ecologisers on their website, and about EcoSanta here.
