At the annual Awards Ceremony on the afternoon of Sunday 22nd November, held this year for the first time live on Zoom, the organisers of the HG Wells Short Story Competition were delighted to announce the winners of the 2020 competition.

The Winner of the Junior £1,000 Turnill Prize is Tabitha Rubens for “The Invisible Zoo”.

A special £250 award for originality was also awarded to Matilda Stepek for “The Body’s Mistakes”.

The winner of the Senior £500 Grand Prize is Susannah Rickards for “Curiosities of the Eye”.

Thank you to each and every person that entered the 2020 competitions, and congratulations to our winners and all our shortlisted authors, so many of qwhom joined us online at the Award Ceremony this year.

An anthology of the 2020 shortlisted stories will be available to purchase shortly via the HG Wells Short Story Competition website, and we will also publish the two winning stories on the site.

Many of our authors provided us with readings before the event. Those that did so are listed below, while the full awards ceremony, including readings given live at the event, are available on our Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/HGWellsShortStoryCompetition/posts/3517466461666959

HG Wells Short Story Competition Awards Ceremony Readings

2020 Margaret and Reg Turnill Prize

Isabel Burns: The Legend of Evander and Acantha or How the Peacock Butterflies Came to be https://youtu.be/YaiDN6oAXB4

Tabitha Rubens: The Invisible Zoo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUEtGKW3KVw

Dewi Schmidt: The Boy Who Could See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boVOzMSy4wc

Matilda Stepek: The Body’s Mistakes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUqnjYxpr6U

2020 Grand Senior Prize

Elou Carroll: The Great Green Forever https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjhwWK7pRZ8

Alwin George V: Sitaram—The Footreader https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2vq57enoH8

Rhiannon Lewis: The Last Flight of La Librairie d’Afrique du Nord https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dTwC2QWb5E

Susannah Rickards: Curiosities of the Eye https://youtu.be/CRLRkMevSDM

Paul Sherman: Rocket Shed to Heaven https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hN1C6c4fr7w

Ali Wilding: The Gift of Sight [Read by Ben Lorenz (www.benlorenz.com)] https://youtu.be/jRYwMhAd5Pk