The Judges' Scores

Extract from Maria Caesar’s speech during the 2013 Bush Curlews Literary Awards Presentation, 26 May 2013

Overall, the scores were very close. Only 6 points separate the first Commended award from the first place in the open poetry section. And only 7 ½ points separated the first commended prize from the first place position in the open short story category.

Most of the time, scores between the judges were similar, however others….

Well, we discovered that the gender of the audience plays a big role in the response to a story or a poem, so it good that we have male and female judges for both the poetry and the short story categories.

One of my own stories was a classic example of this. Marnie and Jenny both gave it very high scores, however Kett’s score was more than 10 points less (and no, Kett "will not live that down"). Clearly, that particular story has greater appeal to a female audience. That is just one of many reasons why receiving feedback on our writing is so important. 

Once again we would like to thank our judges for the many hours of hard work required to judge and comment on each entry received in our competition.

Out of curiosity, after compiling the judges scores to determine the winners we thought it would be interesting to see which entrants received the highest score from each individual judge.

Each judge had given a highest number of points to a different entrant.

In the poetry section, both Allan & Sarah's highest scores were tied to two separate entrants.

Allan Georgee's highest score went to Shirley Syme's poem Old Bob and to Cherelle Murphy's poem Bluey.

Sarah Callcott's highest score went to Terry Slack's poem Fields of Green and to Christine Stewart's poem Two-faced.

In the short story section the judge's

Had again given their highest scores to three different entrants.

Kett Kennedy's highest score went to Jeanyne Whitmont Sekel of Nowra, NSW for her story A junior vikingess. Kett comments that Jeanyne's story "a riveting piece, well presented, well constructed and poignant".

Marnie Niemi's highest score went to Maria Caesar of Charters Towers The Final Page.  Marnie said she "enjoyed this light hearted, amusing and very unusual story with a surprise ending"

And Jenny Schaefer's highest score went to Sandy Bogilevu of Charters Towers for her story Suspended Memories. Jenny commented “the writing with its vivid and varied descriptions is an excellent reflection on another’s experience and is able to evoke in the reader an understanding of a new way of life”. 

I just have one final message for all of our authors, published or un-published, prose or poetry:

“Inspiration can be found everywhere and Writing is a process of discovery”