Hysteria 8 launch event and winners announcements
Well, what an evening. It was the first time I’ve ever held a launch event for a book, let alone an anthology for the Hysteria Writing Competition. And it was the most fun. With my special guests and friends helping out, together with a few technical (no make that human glitches) we got through it and the feedback from attendees was that they enjoyed it too.
The point of the launch was to announce all the winners of the categories and the Guess the Cover competition. And the winners also had their entries read by my good friends and Distinguished Toastmasters (check them out on LinkedIn and you’ll see they all have DTM alongside their names), Steve Graham (my husband as well), Laura McHarrie, and Caroline Brewer.
It was also a joy to be joined by three of the readers who had read the entries that came in and who were the arbiters of what made it into the finalist’s enclosure, as well as the overall winners. Without the whole reading team, this competition would not be possible and I want to say I have an enormous debt of gratitude to them all. Last night I was joined by Gill Scholey, Laura Besley, and Diane Jackman to discuss reading for competitions and their own writing journey.
The entire event was recorded and you can see the video below or on Vimeo. The audio is on my podcast so you can listen on your next walk or journey through Spotify or Apple podcasts if you prefer.
Finally, congratulations go to:
- Tracy Davidson, winner of the Poetry category with A new hope
- Abdulrahman M Abu-Yaman, winner of the Flash Fiction category with What if earth is a pyramid
- Jill Waters, winner of Short Story category with The day of glorious silliness
- Heather Haigh, winner of the Guess the Cover competition who was the first out of the hat with A New Hope.
Each of our winning entries will be added to the website in the coming weeks, and I’m busy planning interviews with all the category winners so keep an eye out for them being added to the podcast.
Hi,
I think my story – ‘The Woman who dropped a stitch’ was shortlisted and published in your anthology last year. I have contacted you previously but had no response so I am trying again…please confirm that it was published (or I may be able to send it elsewhere) and that I can have a contributor’s copy of the anthology.
Best wishes
Denny
Hi Denny, I emailed you on the 2nd December last year with your copy of the Hysteria 9 anthology attached as a pdf file. It was sent to the same email address as you used for this comment. It may have gone into your junk or spam mail folders. You did reply with your bio for the anthology in November, which has been included with your piece.