The Sunday Star-Times Short Story Awards are back for 2010. Launched in 1984 with a vision to recognise and encourage the talent of aspiring New Zealand writers the Sunday Star-Times Short Story Awards are a key part of the NZ literary calendar.

SUNDAY STAR-TIMES SHORT STORY COMPETITION 2010 TERMS & CONDITIONS

Open Division Judge Elizabeth Smithers Comments: 'At first I thought I might have been drawn to the winning story since I was a librarian (without wings). But what really captured me was the Betjeman-like bounce of lisping tennis-playing Jane. And when Shelley rejects mysterious Stanley it is because ‘there was an aura about him that reminded me of shiny paper sewing patterns slipping through my fingers’. I stopped for a moment and thought of those patterns.’

Congratulations to the top 10 finalists in the Open and Secondary Schools categories of the Sunday Star-Times Short Story Awards.

Enter the Sunday Star-Times Short Story Awards.

The Sunday Star-Times Short Story Awards 2009 (in association with Random House) terms and conditions:

Harris Williamson was the Secondary School Division winner with his story A Single Man.

Andre Ngapo was the Open Division winner with his story Te Pou.

Eleanor Catton was the open division winner of the 2007 Sunday Star-Times Short Story competition for her story Necropolis.

Mary Dennis, of Wellington High School, took first place in the secondary school division of the 2007 competition.

Samara McDowell of Wellington was second in the open division of the Sunday Star-Times short story competition. Judge Owen Marshall said Yolk - about the changing and ambivalent relationship between a man and a woman - was a challenging and ambitious story with a strong sense of real life and powerful emotion.

Zarah Butcher-McGunnigle of Western Springs College in Auckland took third place in the 2007 Sunday Star-Times competition. Judge David Hill praised her story's authenticity, economy and "disciplined energy".

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