Bridport Story Slam III

Judging a competition is never an easy task, and that was why I was so glad to be joined by fellow Dorset authors Penny Deacon and Laura James for the judging of the Bridport Story Slam which was held at the Beach and Barnicott on Tuesday night.

The Judges, Laura James, Kate Kelly and Penny Deacon

The annual Bridport Story Slam is an open mic event. Registered authors take turns to read a short story within a strictly enforced 5 minute time slot. This was something they all managed to keep to, although one author cut it very fine – the last word of her story right on the buzzer!

There were twelve brave authors in all and we were treated to a broad range of subject matter, themes and settings, losing ourselves in the worlds created, a cold chill of something sinister, shortly followed by a story that would make us laugh out loud. Stories performed at an open mic event should entertain and these certainly did that.

We then had the difficult task of selecting the winners, retiring to the cosy upstairs of the Beach and Barnicott to discuss. Fortunately the decision was a fairly unanimous one with last year’s winner Jill Smith taking third place with her chilling tale ‘Hide and Seek’.

In second place was Richard Green whose hilarious piece ‘Health and Safety I Presume’ had us all laughing out loud. This was so well performed that we found ourselves wondering if the character he portrayed was really him, but when me met him afterwards we soon realised it wasn’t.

Laura with Richard Green

 

The winner was another very entertaining piece – ‘A French Tale’ by Wendy Breckon which we loved because it packed so much into such a short time frame with great character voice, vivid sense of place and lovely touches of humour. So congratulations Wendy.

Presenting the prize to winner Wendy Breckon

Proceeds from the event went towards the Words for the Wounded charity, Words for the Wounded is a fabulous charity that raises money through writing competitions to help injured servicemen and women for which Penny Deacon was one of the founders.

So thank you to everyone involved in making the story slam such a successful event, to the Beach and Barnicott in Bridport for providing the perfect venue, to Frances Colville for organising everything so well, to our fabulous compare Declan Duffy and of course the authors without whom this simply wouldn’t have happened.