Stringybark Open Short Story Award 2024

CLOSED


The Ghostly Stringybark Award

2015

THIRD PRIZE


Severed

by

George Lancaster

SECOND PRIZE


Ghost Gum

by

Llewellyn Horgan

FIRST PRIZE


The Wilangarra

by

David Slade

I was conceived by the rock pool where the fish kiss the ripples and the rays of the sun warm the granite outcrop that surrounds it. The rock pool is where my mother bashed my father's brains out. The blood dribbled down — drip drip drip into the rock pool. Swirling and mingling, becoming one with nature. My father wasn't the first person to die there. Mrs Alice Kelly was killed there on her honeymoon. They found her husband in a pool of her blood, a broken wine bottle in his hand, but they never found her.

The locals call it Honeymoon Pool.


— from The Rock Pool by Rachel McEleney


Twenty-nine award-winning ghost and horror stories fill these fear-inspiring pages. From mind-altering medical implants to skeletal dingoes and ghostly women at windows these stories from the Ghostly Stringybark Award, will transport you into a darker realm. Some will terrify, some will horrify and others will make you laugh out loud at the cleverness of the writing by these Australian and international short story writers.  

HIGHLY COMMENDED


The Bushwalk — Linda Brandon • Dune-Crawler — Jessica Budin • The Blind Madonna — Christina Cairns • Ghostly Hugh — Kathy Childs • The Woman in the Window — Kathy Childs • Smoke — John Cowell • The Scoreboard — Christine Ferdinands • A Voice through the Fence — Athol Henry • A Song of Love and Death — Patricia J Hughes • Mika — Chris Jones • Swing Low, Sweet Chariot — Pippa Kay • I Can Stand the Despair — Roger Leigh • A Place of One's Own — Belinda Lyons-Lee • Dust to Dust — Benjamin Marie • The Rock Pool — Rachel McEleney • History — Lois Murphy • The Collector's Book — Michael Olive • Beyond — Mona Oliver • Dark Water — Lauren Noelle Rice • Emily's Cottage — Yvonne Saw • Jack Frost — Trudi Slavin • Surveillance — Trudi Slavin • The Shot Tower — Vicki Stevens • I Know What I Hear, Dear Rita! — Maree Teychenné • To Get Away with Murder — Michael Wilkinson • The Unknown Wedding Dress — Sabina Wills

Competition Closed: 16 August 2015


105 entries.  $869 in prizes.

Judges: Zena Shapter, Graham Miller, Dr Rick Williams and David Vernon

Editor: David Vernon

Proof-reader: Frances Underwood

Cover designer: David Vernon & Frances Underwood

Cover photographer: Susan Dussaman

Ausralian printer: Kainos Print

29 published stories.  One e-book and printed anthology, The Ghostly Stringybark


Edited by David Vernon, e-book and paperback, Stringybark Publishing,

ISBN: 978-0-9925759-3-9


$14.95 includes postage within Australia.  Discounts for multiple purchases.

Purchase E-book ($3.95 AUD)