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Sense of Place Competition 2025 – Results

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Our latest free-to-enter writing competition attracted not far shy of 300 entries. As always, we were very impressed by the quality and variety of the poems and prose submitted. And after careful consideration, we have selected the winner as:

  • My Mother’s Kitchen by Râna Campbell

Râna has won the prize of £50, plus one free entry to our Historical Flash Fiction Competition (which is open to entries until 5th November 2025 and has a top prize of £500… DETAILS HERE).

Here is the winning entry, followed by details of the three honourable mentions and the entries that made the shortlist. As always, thank you to everyone who entered.

Winning Entry

My Mother’s Kitchen

is painted, 
matte, 
in matcha green; 
the walls catch errant late-afternoon rays and bounce them across love-worn countertops by which she stood, 
not so long ago,
fairy hands deep in doughs and batters.
The cupboards have yellowed—
or is that the halogen light?—
stained with substances so ancient I don’t dare scrub them away.
The stains will fade, like those other things eroded by eons of being
(the wan wicker chairs, 
the round table reminiscent of conviviality, 
its blanched bohemian cloth with tassels and a blurry backstory).

And so, I’ll stay a while more
to bask in their dimming haloes.

by Râna Campbell

(PDF Version)

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Author bio: Râna is a freelance editor from and currently based in Montreal, Canada. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Intrepidus Ink, The Book of 42 Squared, 50-Word Stories, 50-Give-or-Take, dadakuku, God’s Cruel Joke, and Humphrey Magazine, in addition to winning and being shortlisted, longlisted, and honorably mentioned in contests run by Women on Writing, The Australian Writers’ Centre, and New Writers. When not writing, Râna can be found struggling with the endless task of self-improvement.

Honourable Mentions

Here are the three entries that were in contention until the final round of judging.

  • Deep Lake by Poppy Mortiboys
  • One Day I will Circle Pūowaina and Imagine by Kalilinoe Detwiler
  • Seaside Escapes by Katrina Moinet

Shortlist

Here are the entries that were selected for the shortlist:

  • Collective Responsibility by Georgia Beard
  • Derrible Caves, Sark by Xander Sable
  • Dreamin’ of Tobago by Sim Smailes
  • I Have Acres Eternal by Peter G E Kelly
  • Island by Christian Donovan
  • Oh Your Accent- Where Are You From? by Fi Kelly
  • Oil Inheritance by Osas Jefra
  • On Retuning to the Childhood Home by Cazz Anders
  • Pensioners Special at the Ferry Café, Fleetwood by Alice Eaves
  • Remember That Beach by Nick Fogg
  • Saturday Afternoons by Jeni Bell
  • Sun on the cliffs by Lottie Wright
  • The Receptacle of a Flower by Adam Crosbie
  • The Spirit of Queensland by Julie Anne Dexter
  • Things I Am Not Scared of at the College Nature Lab by Lulu Cavicchi
  • Two Sisters by Amy Durant

Thank you to everyone who entered. If you’d like to find out about our upcoming writing competitions as well as writing prompts, book recommendations and more, sign up to our newsletter below (we send one each month and will never share your email address or any other information with anyone else).

Also, if you find NewWriters.org.uk interesting or useful, please consider donating at our Ko-fi.com page. We’ll use any donations to offer more free competitions (with bigger prizes) and to fund more free entries to our paid competition to those on low incomes. 

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