Our March 2022 Short Story Contest has come to a close, and after much deliberation from our panel of seven student judges, the winners have been decided. We received 24 submissions that covered an incredible range of topics: fantastic adventures, dystopian futures, suspenseful mysteries, and even real-world drama. Without further ado, here are the winning stories!

First place: To Know Somebody by Jennifer Ridley

This poetic and heartfelt story flows from one sentence to another while gradually revealing details about its two central characters. It is deeply emotional, and uses many creative literary devices to envelope the reader in its romantic labyrinth.

Second place: Bill Q59 by Anneke Goodwin

This dystopic submission has an excellent plot twist and uses descriptive imagery to paint a vivid picture for the reader. The first person narrative choice allows for a greater connection with the reader to experience the character’s emotions.

Third place: Darling and his Devil by Karina Groza

This story employs the present tense and first person limited point-of-view to great effect. It builds suspense in every paragraph, and manages to pull off an enemies-to-lovers plot in under 1000 words.

Honourable Mentions:

Because we had many more submissions than expected, we would like to acknowledge two more excellent stories that stuck out from the crowd.

The Great Obsolescence of Planet Earth by Claudia T.

This story features many original ideas and has beautiful prose. One of our judges commented that it resembles the prologue of an epic fantasy novel.

I'm a Baker by Ash M.

This entry has excellent pacing and story structure, as well as an intriguing main character.

It can be hard to share your writing with other people, exposing it to their potentially positive or negative opinions. Therefore, we would like to congratulate all of the authors who entered this contest! Our team thoroughly enjoyed reading all your wonderful stories and it made our decision very difficult.

(Update: We have published a number of the other entries to the contest, which can now be accessed under the “Creative Writing” section of the website. They have not been edited.)