the joy of being a loser

So, there’s this major writing competition called the Bridport Prize. It happens every year, there are huge prizes, and the standard is absolutely immense. Thousands of writers, both established and emerging, enter. This year there were over 6000 entrants. I was one of them.

Guess what? I didn’t win.

But I found out yesterday that I did get shortlisted! For some reason, they don’t tell entrants they’ve been shortlisted until after they’ve told the winners/runners-up that they’ve won/run-up. That’s probably a good thing in my case, as I would now be very disappointed to find out I had lost – as it is, I get the joy of knowing I was close. I have no idea how close – I guess there could be hundreds on the shortlist. But I don’t care about that. It means my story was of a high enough standard to be seriously considered. And I am well chuffed about that!

The Bridport Prize is the one competition I’ve had my eye on since I started writing seriously. This is a big deal. Here’s to next year!