The Helen Richards Creative Writing Award was launched in 2019/20 to acknowledge literary talent at Murray Edwards College.
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College alumna, Helen Richards (1998, English) passed away in 2017 and this award was created in her memory by her friends and family.
Dr Holly Corfield Carr (Fellow in English) led the panel of judges, including Kate Morrison and Hazel Tsoi-Wiles (alumnae). Kate and Hazel both studied English alongside Helen.
College students were invited to submit a previously unpublished 4000-word story earlier this year and we are delighted to announce that ‘Boned’ by Anna Rainbird-Chill (2018, English) is the winning entry. Anna has been awarded a prize of £100.
The panel commented:
We were particularly impressed with how the story spoke to the strange and lonely limbo of the current moment, handling the small scale of domestic detail with confidence and ease. From the image of the opening line’s ‘spatchcocked’ chicken to the childhood game of ‘Me and Not Me’, this story quietly pulls everything apart and shows how the short story can cover a lot of ground, lengthening like the slanted shadows on this one summer’s evening.
Many congratulations to Anna!