September 4, 2018
It would be remiss of me not to mention, also, that my very clever daughter Katerina Gibson is the winner of the 2018 VU/Overland Short Story Prize. To say I'm a 'Proud Mum' doesn't quite cover it. It's also not often either of us chalks up these kinds of wins in the writing game, so the fact her VU win and my QLA shortlist happened within a few days of each other was all the more sweeter. 863 entries and she won! I guess I can forgive her now for not becoming an Olympic figure skater like her namesake (Katarina Witt).
The judges had this say about the winner and runners-up: ‘Nothing in the night’ (by runner-up Ashleigh Synnott) is a very strong stylistic execution of a story idea, while ‘Dear Ophelia’ (by runner-up Erik Garkain) lands a truly breathtaking idea. The winner, ‘How to disappear into yourself (in 8 steps)’, does both – and the hundreds of other good stories we received attest to what an effort that is. All three stories, along with the complete judges’ notes, will feature in Overland 232, out in late September.