This Judges Report speech was presented by co-judge and poet Jennifer Harrison at the Light and Shadow Booklaunch, at St Kilda Bowls Club,Saturday 28th June 2025
It was a pleasure to co-judge this prize with Amanda Scotney in 2024 and it’s an absolute joy to be a part of the anthology launch festivities here today, particularly to hear the readings. This is one of the most remarkable competitions in the world because it is cross genre and the prize is so generous. We have read poems, plays, short stories, flash fiction all vying for a place. Within the short story tradition, we also have terrific diversity: traditional short stories of place, person, incident but also genres of fable, fairytale, sci-fi, crime, travel. Within the poetry tradition we have rhymed and unrhymed verses, concrete poems, lyrics, narrative poems, prose poems. Some pieces seemed to have come from novel chapters (perhaps a novel in progress or finished); some seemed to stand alone. It was a cacophony of wonderful work.
We were pleased to choose a poem as the winner for the first time, ‘Bright square of morning’ by ACT poet Isi Unikowski. I believe the winning poem is now published in the author’s new collection by Puncher & Wattmann. Congratulations Isi. It was also wonderful to see several other poems in the top 11: the superb ‘Slithers of Light’(4thplace), ‘Sky’ and ‘The Shed’ and it was, in fact, marvellous to see so many poems selected for publication in the Light and Shadow Anthology. Other short stories in the top 11 included ‘The Colour of Air’, a short story about the death of a child, ‘Cash Only’ about a young man finding his place, his country, his tribe, ‘Tidelines’ a traditional short story with wonderful evocation of a coastline in the UK, an untitled short story about how the colour of black appears multihued to the blind, and finally a short story, ‘The Shallows’, which depicted in effortless prose, the sea, aging and dementia.
We awarded second place to ‘The Brightest Star’, a story about patience and resilience in achieving the perfect photographs for an exhibition and the lovely relationship between the photographer and her husband in achieving these snaps. This second place was awarded to a previous winner of a Minds Shine Bright award, the very talented Helen Booth. Third place was awarded to the story ‘Roots’, its author a young writer from the USA, Edie Redwine. This was an absolutely mesmerising, brutal story: one that caught the heart as much as the imagination.
It was an enormous job to choose these pieces. The prize had many many entries. Amanda and I talked over short lists, long lists, shuffling one to the other, out and back. I read everything submitted twice and the short and long listed pieces many more times. My discussions with Amanda were truly inspiring and we think we have decided upon a terrific collection that covers genres and but also reflects contemporary Australian and international concerns. Congratulations to everyone who submitted. It’s so common to hear that the standard was really high but it is true in this case. We reluctantly had to let certain pieces go, sometimes because we had already chosen a piece along similar themes for the anthology. I say this as an encouragement to all writers who submitted their enchanting work.