The Rhys Davies Competition

Bright new stars of Welsh writing
Young Newport Writer wins £1,000

Carolyn Smith, Des Barry, Sian Hughes, Emma Marks, Vicky Thomas and John Williams

The winner of The Rhys Davies Short Story Competition 2005 was announced on Wednesday 30 November at An Evening of Urban Fiction, organised by Academi. Carolyn Smith, a previously unpublished writer from Newport, was presented with a £1,000 cheque by Sam Adams, Rhys Davies Trustee. She adds to the distinguished and varied line of Newport’s literary and media figures that includes WH Davies, Ronald Firbank, Leslie Thomas, Peter Greenaway, Johnny Morris and James Dean Bradfield.

Carolyn’s story, Scenery, is a hard, tough–told story, pieces of modern lives. The language is likely to shock the casual reader but will be appallingly familiar to anyone who wanders the contemporary, urban streets. The voice is a dysfunctional teenage boy sitting on a bus watching his past go by. Jane Austen it isn’t, 2005 it is. According to the competition judges, Des Barry and John Williams, we have here “a story of poignancy, nastiness, love, and disconnectedness [in] Carolyn Smith’s sharply perceptive Scenery.” Read the full story here.

The runners-up are Sian Hughes, for Death and the Teenage Stripper, a wonderful and hilarious tale of teenage angst and desire in the shadow of a crematorium; Daf Downes for Double Chemistry, a story of double dealing in sex and drugs, and the betrayal of friends, wives and lovers; Emma Marks for Homeward Bound, a creepy claustrophobic tale of repression, flirtation and nasty predation and Vicky Thomas for Rear View Mirror, a story of urban paranoia and guilt by default.

Competition judge, Des Barry said:
“I think it noteworthy that three of the stories we chose took place in the claustrophobic confines of cars and buses: places where we are shut off from the outside world as we go from city to city; or from one part of the city to another. The other two stories we chose used archetypal themes - betrayal for one; and sex and death for the other.” Read the full adjudication here.

The Academi’s competitions this year have been distinguished by the youth of the winners: the two winners of the 2005 Book of the Year, Owen Sheers and Caryl Lewis are both young writers and so are the main prize-winners of this year’s prestigious Rhys Davies Short Story Competition. Today’s writers are as likely to be seen out clubbing as turning a fine phrase in solitary confinement. The future of Welsh writing – in both languages – is secure for many years to come.

The Rhys Davies Short Story Competition is funded by the Rhys Davies Trust and administered by the Academi. To read more about the Rhys Davies Trust click here.

Winners

Carolyn Smith: Carolyn Smith was born and has lived much of her life in Newport. She has a first in English from Somerville College, Oxford, and has written most of a doctorate on Victorian women poets (hampered by her dislike of rewriting). Three of her poems were selected by Paul Muldoon for the 2000 ’May Anthologies’, an Oxford/Cambridge co-production best known for featuring Zadie Smith; others have been published in Isis and various student magazines.

Daf Downes: Born in England and brought up in the Rhondda. He was educated at Cardiff University and the College of Law, Chester. His stories and poems have appeared in a number of publications and he is currently putting the finishing touches to his first novel.

Sian Hughes: Born in Swansea, she now lives in Cardiff. She works in PR and has recently completed Pain Sluts, a novel structured as a series of interconnected short stories written with the aid of an Arts Council of Wales Writers’ Bursary. The collection is currently seeking publication. Her screenwriting credits include ‘Natural Cures for Common Ailments’, selected for production as part of the Sgrin/HTV Wales ‘Screengems’ scheme, broadcast on HTV Wales;  ‘Marw Stripio’, produced by Teledu Opws for S4C; and ‘Triongl’, a three-part thriller for S4C. She is also co-writing two film screenplays; ‘The Saint of Missing Things’ and ‘Ultramaroon’. Ultramaroon recently secured development money from European film development agency ‘Media Plus’

Emma Marks: Born in 1975 at St. David’s hospital, Cardiff. She completed a Film Studies degree at Southampton in 1997. Her first story was published in INK magazine in February 2004 and since then she has had three other stories published, Aesthetica, Flask Fiction and Spiked. She is currently studying an MA in Screenwriting.

Vicky Thomas: Twenty-three years old, originally from Caerphilly but now living in Cardiff. She graduated from the University of Glamorgan with a BA in English Studies and has recently finished an MA in Creative and Media Writing at the University of Wales, Swansea. Vicky currently attends the University of Wales Institute in Cardiff where she is studying for a PGCE Secondary School qualification. She has written a substantial amount of poetry as well as numerous short stories and hopes to begin work on a novel in the near future.

For further information, contact:
Academi,
Chief Executive Peter Finch, Mount Stuart House, Mount Stuart Square, Cardiff, CF10 5FQ
tel: 029 2047 2266 e-mail: post@academi.org
website: www.academi.org