Bury Lit Fest
Creative Writing Competition 2025

Bury St Edmunds Literature Festival are delighted to announce the winners of our annual Creative Writing Competition.

 

This year we received a record number of entries, particularly in the adult category, where every £7.50 entry fee goes towards funding the free author events for schools that are part of the prize for the winners of our Young People and Children Categories.

 

This year, we set the challenge to respond to the prompt

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with a piece of creative writing under 500 words length. It could be a piece of prose - fiction or non-fiction - poetry, a play, a rap or song lyrics; the form and the content was entirely down to the author. We were delighted that the standard was universally high - East Anglia is full of writers of all ages! Our judges, authors Jill Dawson, Ashley Hickson-Lovence and Serena Patel, had their work cut out, but after much deliberation they came to their conclusions and have chosen six very worthy winners.

 

This year’s winner of the adult category is Elaine Waterhouse with Inside the Cover. Our judge, Jill Dawson, had this to say about Elaine’s winning piece. “Elaine demonstrates her skills from the opening line, with arresting phrases such as 'the holes ventilated the knees of his jeans' or 'lollipops' to describe the young man's earbuds.  A strong voice drew me in.  This brief story is a character study, and an exploration of the profound value of novels (George Eliot's Middlemarch, to be exact) to help us to connect with a stranger, just as the two characters do.  A moving, assured and understated story. Our unanimous winner.”

On discovering her win, Elaine responded: “I am both surprised and delighted to be selected as the winner, which is truly humbling. I’m so grateful for the opportunity to participate in the competition and this recognition has strengthened my confidence and determination to continue developing my writing. Thank you!”. 

 

The runner-up in the same category is Nicola Walpole, with Found In Time. Jill, said of Nicola’s work: “This intriguing story was a worthy runner up. With its fresh and contemporary tone, the writer explored the ways that 'found' stories get pieced together.  A scrap, found inside a book in a charity shop, leads a keen story-teller astray. This story playfully demonstrates the joys - and dangers - of research for writers, with economy, humour and a light touch.” Nicola’s response to being runner-up: “I'm delighted to be chosen as runner up in The Bury St Edmunds Literature Festival 2025 short story competition. Having Jill Dawson validate my writing has been a huge boost to my confidence, thank you.”

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Both of Nicola and Elaine have won tickets across the events at this year’s Bury St Edmunds Literature Festival and a place on our Gold Dust Creative Writing Workshop Day which will take place on Saturday 12th October at United Reformed Church, Bury St Edmunds. The day comprises of three workshops - Do You Have A Novel In You with Jill Dawson, Writing Memoir with Midge Gillies and Structuring Your Novel with Louis Doughty and a publishing panel event on How To Get Published with Jill Dawson, author’s agent Emma Shercliffe and editorial director at Simon and Schuster UK, Phoebe Morgan. Workshops can be booked separately for £40 or as a full day ticket for £130 which includes lunch from FOLK cafe, the publishing seminar and two tickets to author events across the season.

 

Our winners in the Young People categories are Jasmine Wales, with her “vivid and poetic” story The Road To Discovery, Alexis Rose Josy, a student at St Benedicts Catholic School, with her “warm and nostalgic” story, My Second Home. Jasmine, who is home educated, has selected to attend the Gold Dust Creative Writing Day as her prize and for Alexis Rose, is the winner of one of our free school’s events with East Anglian Award winning author Dr Ashley Hickson-Lovence, who will visit St Benedicts and give an inspiring whole school assembly on his brilliant novel WILD EAST and the power of using verse to tell your own story.

 

Our winners in the Children 12 and under categories are Florence Atkinson, with her story Bookworlds: The Portal Between Stories, an adventure story that our judges said they “could see it becoming a whole series of stories”. Florence, was at Risby Primary School at the time of writing the piece but has since started in Year 7 at County High School, and so Dr Ashley Hickson-Lovence will also be visiting County High and meeting year 7 students there. Our youngest winner is Oluwadarasimi Huldah Fajuyi, a student in year 6 at Tollgate Primary School, and the only writer to win with a piece of creative non-fiction, Getting Lost In A Book, which our judges said was “very thought provoking and interpreted the theme in a really interesting way”. Oluwadarasimi has won Tollgate a visit with bestselling author of the Anisha Accidental Detective series, Serena Patel, who will run an interactive assembly around her recent hit novel for young readers, Pia’s Pet Club.

 

Our schools events are funded by both Adult Category entrance fees and, this year, by the generous support of Wensum Trust English Hubs, which is funded by the Department for Education, and supports schools in Suffolk and Norfolk to achieve excellence in teaching reading and early language development and are part of Bury St Edmunds Literature Festival’s charitable mission to engage children and young people throughout East Anglia with reading in an exciting and accessible way. As part of this, parents and guardians of all children attending the school's events will have the opportunity to purchase visiting author’s books at a marked discount and receive a special code to reduce the adult ticket price of all children’s events at this year’s literature festival. 

 

Children’s events at this year’s Bury St Edmunds Literature Festival include That’s Not My… a sensory event for babies and toddlers, Poppy and Sam, an interactive storytelling event for young readers, Pia’s Pet Club with Serena Patel for middle grade readers and Wild East, a verse workshop with Dr Ashley Hickson Lovence. Tickets to all author events at the festival are completely free for all under 18s though booking is recommended. 

The Bury St Edmunds Literature Festival is returning for its 7th annual festival, with a four day programme of author events, creative writing workshops, walks and film screenings 9-12th October 2025; its biggest and boldest festival yet. Book Now: https://www.burylitfest.co.uk/boxoffice