Posted: 11/02/13
Students’ winning way with words
Adult learners at West Nottinghamshire College have showcased their literary skills through a creative writing competition.
Students on the Creative Writing Next Steps programme, which is run through the college’s Adult Community Learning Service and funded by Nottinghamshire County Council, were set the challenge to produce a short story, a poem or a one act play.
Seven entries were received and were judged by class members and given marks out of ten for structure, entertainment and overall effectiveness. The overall winner was the one who scored most out of a possible 30 points.
Last week (6 February) Adele Walker was awarded first prize at Mansfield Library for her short story entry called Alpha and Omega and presented with a book for inspiring creative writers.
Tutor Pete Benyon said: “The standard of the entries submitted was excellent and the diverse nature of the topics explored and styles used was even more impressive. It’s been a joy to witness the writers develop their craft throughout the course.”
“Adele is a worthy winner of the first MLWG’s competition as it’s a subtle, understated and well-crafted tale of love, memory and shared experience.”
Ex- teacher Adele said: “My story was inspired by an image given to us at the first creative writing class and I worked on developing my story from that point.
“I’m proud of my new writing skills and I really enjoyed the first ten-week course as well as this Next Steps eight-week course and it’s inspired me to go on to enter a national writing competition.”
All of the students’ competition entries can be seen on their blog at http://www.mlwg.wordpress.com
