Eastbourne writers declare winners in Annual Short Story and Poetry competition

John Silverton won both sections in the Anderida Writers Annual Short Story and Poetry competition at the Hydro Hotel, Eastbourne, on Tuesday, July 9th, when actress Susan Thacker read out the entries.

He lifted the short story trophy with The Raffle Ticket, pipping another humourous entry, Tony Flood's Pleasure and Guilt. Wendy Ogden (Imposters) came third, followed by Francis Wait (Ghost Story) and Mike Haffner (Bangers and Cash).

John won the poetry competition for the third successive year with An Independant Candidate, finishing ahead of Alan Turner with A Nearly Nonagerian Ned and Tony Flood with Growing Old.

The winners are pictured with Anderida patron Tamara McKinley and Sue Thacker.

This year's competition was on any theme, and there were cash prizes of £60 for the winner of the short story section and £50 for the poetry section.

Other prizes were: two theatre tickets for the Royal Hippodrome Theatre's summer season production A Night To Remember, signed copies of Ellie Dean's books Homecoming and A Place Called Home, a book giving creative writing advice by well-known authors called Being a Writer, donated by John Silverton, a book called How To Get Published and Make a Lot of Money, donated by Tony Flood, and a writer's notebook donated by Michael Fleming.

Entries were judged by those present who were either full Anderida members or guests having attended at least one previous meeting this year. They gave scores up to 10 for each entry.

Actor Brian Capron of Coronation Street fame, who had shared reading the entries in previous years, was unavailable on Tuesday so Sue Thacker read all 18 entries.

* Sue Thacker will be appearing in A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen at Seaford Little Theatre, 4 Steyne Road, BN25 1HA, from Friday, September 6th to Saturday, September 14th. Both Saturdays are matinee performances, starting at 2.30 p.m., while all weekday performances start at 7.45 p.m.

A Doll's House tells the story of a young wife (Nora) who is treated by her husband like a toy...a doll. She has always played along with this, but there comes a crunch time in their marriage when she has to make some hard decisions. This young woman has an older friend (Kristine, played by Sue Thacker) with her own story. Nora and Kristine decide to take action.

Ticket, priced £11 tiered seats and £10 level seats, can be booked online at www.ticketsource.co.uk or by going to the website www.seafordlittletheatre.co.uk and following the links.