Hand-in-hand immediately brings to mind an image of two people, young or old walking together side-by-side. We’ve borrowed the title from a story written by Australian Annette Lyons, one of 27 poems and stories, long listed in our annual Write about Walking writing competition, that this year had the theme of “Walking together”.

Intriguingly, Annette and her daughter, Bronwyn Birdsall each have stories included in the long list.  We have to thank Orana Arts from regional New South Wales to thank for sponsoring a prize and for promoting the competition to their community.

We recruit volunteers in each of the poetry and stories category who join our writers-in-residence in judging the poems and stories submitted in the competition. Amelia Hodsdon for prose, and Shani Cadwallender for poetry, will be passing their mantle of writers-in-residence to the winners of this year‘s competition, who will be announced at an online showcase event on the 28th September.

We would very much like to thank our volunteer judges who included Lydia Kennaway, a former competition winner for poetry and R.M. Francis who had been an MC for a previous year’s showcase event. We were delighted to have Nick Sayers, former senior fiction editor at Hodder and Stoughton/Hachette and Geoff Nicholson, novelist and author of “The Art of Walking” to urge the stories. Another coincidence happened there too, as Nick had been Geoff’s editor back in the 1980s!

Will be announcing the shortlist of six poems and six stories on the 10th September and soon after will be publishing, an illustrated chapbook in conjunction with publisher Sampson Low, that will include each of the shortlisted pieces and will go on sale. The book itself is illustrated by Alban Low and edited by Ann de Forest

Congratulations to all the Long Listers, you can read their stories and poems here, mark your favourites and leave comments too.