Overall Winner: Victoria Cheape

We loved Victoria’s photograph Still, set in a car park, which incongruously shows a lone tree surrounded by concrete and laden down with fruit. Check out the image below.

Runner-up: Stuart Bradley

Stuart’s sharp story Sophie Matters takes the idea of plenty and turns it on his head. Narrator Sophie is dealing with the death of someone close to her, but realises as she goes through the motions that despite having many people to turn to, she is completely alone.

Here’s an extract:

“I have 650 followers on Tumblr, 967 friends on a Myspace account I never check anymore and 734 friends on Facebook. I have plenty of friends, or at least that’s what I tell myself. Groups of people from my school meet up at the MetroCentre every weekend, but I hardly ever go. When I don’t turn up, they all wonder where I am. When I do, they wonder the same thing.”

Runner-up: Kirstie Swain

Kirstie’s short story Plenty is a beautiful snapshot of a day in the life of a long-married Italian couple. Kirstie skilfully shows their plentiful love for each other and depicts it in gorgeously written detail as she takes us through their day, niggles and feelings of affection.

Here’s an extract:

“Fabio chops through a stick of salami, and the knife misses his finger by an inch. Any further down and it would have cut off his wedding ring. He runs his hands over the red striped apron that billows like a toothpaste sail over his belly. His wife. He loves her plenty. Not too much. Not too little. Just enough. Her line creased face is like paper burnt by the sun, a walnut stone, still beautiful but pickled by love, oil and too much wine. She loves him, but he only ever loves her back, like a compliment. It is polite. It is plenty.”