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Sterling stuff

With 300 entries and a 'fantastic' standard of work, there was stiff competition in this year's WriteStuff writing challenge, reports Nick Le Messurier

Sterling stuff
Sterling stuff / Guernsey Press

THE young winners of the Guernsey Literary Festival's WriteStuff writing competition came face to face with their judge, Ann Bryant, at a special presentation.

Ann, a successful published author, is Guernsey's patron of reading and visits local schools and promotes reading around the island through workshops and talks.

There was high praise for the winners from Andy Phillips, executive director private bankers for sponsor Julius Baer, who told them that the entry number of 300 was 'amazing for such a small island'.

'Once again it shows that Guernsey is punching well above its weight.'

The stories, he said, were 'absolutely fantastic work. Do keep it up.'

The competition was open to all school pupils in Guernsey, from Year 3 to upper secondary, and split into three age groups. Almost 300 entries from 13 schools and from individual young local writers were received.

The top two schools in terms of numbers of entrants were Elizabeth College and St Sampson's High.

Gabriel Buchanan, Casper Bailey and Daniel Lilley were the class winners. Their stories are reproduced here, but entries are available to view on the Writestuff site, http://2017.writestuff.gg

Gabriel's story mixed football with the supernatural. 'I have a love of football and I decided to mix football with vampires. And then I just started writing,' said Gabriel, who recently entered a story in the BBC 500 Words national competition and finished in the top 4,500 from an entry of half a million.

The brief for the Writestuff young writers this year was to create a character in 300 words, and intermediate winner Casper Bailey had already given his subject some thought. 'And then, when I was thinking, the image popped into my head of the writer character and I went with it.' He finished with a story covering a writer's obsession.

Senior winner Daniel Lilley's story centred on a man imprisoned for murder. Daniel said, 'I wanted to create a character who would stand up on his own, who would come across as a specific person.'

The winners:

Primary (Years 3-6): 1, Gabriel Buchanan; 2, Emily Gardner; 3, Isla Savory.

Intermediate (Years 7-9): 1, Casper Bailey; 2, Francois Cloete; 3, Owen Bonner-Morgan.

Secondary (Year 10+): 1, Daniel Lilley; 2, Rachel Quick; 3, Charlie Stevens.