Members Writing Contest – closes mid-October 2022
Cash Prizes Awarded
Guidelines:
- Submit your entries via the form below
- The contest is for members only. Become a member
- All entries, max 500 words (poems max 20 lines)
- Max 2 submissions
- Closes 31st October. Awards announced at the HWC Christmas Party!
Prompts
Write a piece inspired by one of the quotes or images on this page.
love, real love, comes with three conditions – respect, kindness and trust. It isn’t, and should never be, unconditional.
―Megan Jacobson, The Break-up Season
Sandalwood and young gums looked almost grey in the brown-purple hills, and the farthest hills, and the cloud shadows, and the far clumps of scrub were dark blue, and the east wind was dry as fire, and the whole huge land smelled of eucalyptus and dry grass and a harsh sweet smell like the stems of everlastings.
The most fundamental thing about a person is desire. It defines them. Tell me what a person wants, truly wants, and I’ll tell you who they are, and how to persuade them
— Max Barry, Lexicon
She was like a sheet anchor sometimes, a steadying influence on him, on everyone around her. Made people laugh, that sensible streak in her, but it also made her someone of substance.
— Tim Winton
You might walk for twenty miles along this track without being able to fix a point in your mind, unless you are a bushman. This is because of the everlasting, maddening sameness of the stunted trees – that monotony which makes a man long to break away and travel as far as trains can go, and sail as far as ship can sail – and farther.
— Henry Lawson
In limbo
suspended
about my son’s cot
waits a kite never waltzed by wind—
made for a boy too young to run
by a man too young to die
I pictured my father’s fingers
stitching cotton skin taut
over twine-bound balsa bones
yet knowing he’d not see
his grandchild’s upturned face
and hear his joyful peals
— Carolyn Eldridge-Alfonzetti, The Gift, Grieve 2022
I play among the pixels in long-distance peek-a-boo
reaching through a southern sunrise to relay a kiss good night,
time travelling from my laptop. Smiling. Pining. Missing you.
Our words touch, caress the darkness, cradle morning with delight.
We’re both yawning while you drift toward young dreams where I have been.
I’m reaching through my sunrise to relay your kiss goodnight.
Sunbeams romp with fading firelight around faces on a screen
— Joanne Ruppin, Time Travelling with Baby
Newcastle Poetry Prize 2018 (Buy here)
She wore nights when she almost convinced herself she belonged. She wore a line traced with eyebrow pencil on the backs of her thighs, knees and calves, all the way down to her ankles and the red promise of her dancing shoes. The war had worn down supplies—especially of nylon, and men—and a line drawn down the back of her legs was a line drawn. She wore her legs choreographed to a life that real stockings with real seams could never achieve
— Kit Scriven, She Wore Red on Her Lips
Newcastle Short Story Award 2021 (Buy Here)
