2024 Yeovil International Literary Competition - Winner

That Golden Hour, has been awarded first prize in the 2024 Yeovil International Literary Competition.

Judge Julie Goodall described the short story in this way:

         ‘That Golden Hour’ is a beautifully crafted story that manages to be both expansive and yet intimate. The story opens with a declaration that what we are about to read are conversations with ‘Famous Fitzroy Residents – 1970–2020’, and this piece is told through the eyes of two people who meet in Fitzroy in 1968. It not only covers decades, but traverses the world, telling a beautifully circular tale of the highs and lows of two separate lives. The writing pulls you through the story at a pace, so it could be easy to miss wonderful nuances like ‘Couples tend to fall in love simultaneously, but falling out of love is a game of solitaire.’ Rachel states that doubts are ‘colonising my brain’ and Vince includes a delightful Italian saying that ‘The fish always stinks from the head’. These pertinent touches are sprinkled throughout the simple but clever first-person monologues of Rachel and Vince.

          In just under 2000 words, ‘That Golden Hour’ provides a narrative that could easily translate to a full-length book or a movie. At the end, the relevance of the title moves the reader deeply, leaving us with images that are genuinely hard to forget.

My sincere thanks to the judge and administrators for running this competition and for selecting my entry. For the full results in the competition, just click here.