I stared resolutely at the platters of dip and crackers. The voice of a young writer echoed around the room, reading an excerpt of her writing. It was good. Really good. When I’d entered the Australian Christian Young Writers Award competition, I had completely forgotten that my competitors were real people. Not just faceless pages of writing.
But now, I was nervous. When I’d received the email invitation to fly down to Melbourne because I’d received “a prize”, the organisers of the event hadn’t specified whether I’d placed first, second or third in the competition. But now I was in Melbourne, in a room full of incredible writers from all over Australia, and I was about to find out what I’d won.
Finally, I heard my own voice echo around the room and a grin split across my face. They’d been playing the recordings in order of third, second and first place prize. Mine was the last one to play.
Silence fell and the MC stepped to the microphone.
“And the winner of the Australian Christian Young Writer Award is… Shannae Ku for Dusty Wings.”
The room burst into applause as I scooted my chair back and walked to the stage. I felt like I was almost in a haze.
I won the Australian Christian Young Writer’s Award!
I actually entered this a few months ago. At the time, it wasn’t a huge deal. I had some extra time during my university break and worked on pulling a short story together over the course of a month. I submitted my story before the deadline… and promptly forgot about it. 😅 But going down to Melbourne for the awards ceremony was such an incredible experience! As a writer, I have developed so many projects that I still can’t show anyone yet. It was so validating to get confirmation that all the work I’ve been doing behind the scenes is actually making me a better writer. So, when I do get published, my work will be that much stronger!
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