Results
In 2023, in partnership with Bloomsbury Publishing, we ran a creative writing competition to give girls, young women and non-binary writers aged 19 or under the opportunity to have their creative work appear alongside bestselling authors Madeline Miller and Jennifer Saint. We asked entrants to submit a piece of creative writing of 1500 words or less, inspired by the classical world, and there were hundreds of amazing entries. See below for the results: huge congratulations to all of the long and short listed writers!
Winner
Cait Kremenstein – In the Bad Times
Cait’s brilliant story has been selected as the overall winning entry and will be published by Bloomsbury in the upcoming Women Re-Creating Classics: Contemporary Voices, co-edited by Dr Emily Hauser (author of the acclaimed For the Most Beautiful) and Dr Helena Taylor, where they foreground discussions and interviews between writers and academics, reflecting on why classical creative retellings are so popular now, and showcase fantastic contemporary receptions of Classics by women writers. Make sure to look out for this exciting publication and read In the Bad Times!
Listen here to our podcast interview with Cait about the inspiration for her winning story.
Runners Up
Hafsa Tifow – An Ouroborosian Odyssey
Hettie Nolan – Our Penelope
Final Shortlist
Maddy Browne – Orpheus at Temple Meads
Chloe Choi Chu Cam – The Hetaera Confesses in the Whispered Dark
Emelia Dobson – A grapevine grows
Salma Elsaid – A Daughter Betrayed
Roberta Jenkins – The Weavers
Jay T. A. Miller – He Is Apollo
Evie Patterson – Women are Stained with Blood
Sophie Powers – Daphne
May Robinson – Pomegranate Juice
Lily Shahata – To Pygmalion
Lily White – A Woman Scorned
Angelina Wu – Chicken
Shortlisted
Saskia Grace Blacker – An Heir’s Loom
Isobelle Catherine – Bloodlust
Penelope Ceccato – Penelope
Chloe Choi Chu Cam – Clytemnestra Auditions for the Role of Lady Macbeth
Almila Dükel – Hidden Islands
Maria Louise Green – Odyssea
Isobel Gurnett – Burning of Alyssa
Maisie Harris – Losing my religion
Esme Hobbs – In the future we cannot see the stars
Mathilda Ingall – Daphne Lauri
Charlie James – The Tenth Muse
Keira Judd – Goddess of Vengeance
Vilkas Kraker – Ad Infinitum
Raadhikhaa Kumaarr – Ode to Venus
Sophie Laithwaite – Amidst the Ash
Aashi Lalit – Betrayal requires a vulnerable soul
Vanessa Leung – Blood Flower
Amy Luong – The world burns for her
L.A. Macari – The Eleusinian Mystery
Camille Marty – What is Aspasia?
Annie McDowell – Fallen Verdigris Leaves
Phoebe Meyer – Caryatid
Peregrine Neger – Unravelled
Lucy Nicholson – I watched, I wove
Hettie Nolan – Andromeda in Ecstasy; Spinster
Rose Ridley – Clytemnestra
Madeleine Riley-Smith – Miss Fortune
Nico Rondelli – Iphigenia
Olivia Saunders – The Silent Women of Tragedy
Zoe Sayers – Lucretia’s Elegy
Hannah Scotland – Musings on Death
Olivia Lauren Strudwick – I sing of arms
Maryclare Tan – Lucretia
Helen Totty – Aphrodite
Imogen Vernon – A Poet’s Tyranny
Kitty Volino – Little Bird
Jasmine Wales – The Red Amphora
Violet Wan (Ching) – Eniautos daimon
Ruby Warren – This is what happened to spring
Cherie Wong – The Lost Pleiad: Wife of Sisyphus
Anastasia Zelenskaya – Fallen
Judging Panel
