By Olivia Condous
Young local authors were recognised at the fifth-annual Moorabool Young Writers Awards, with many students taking home prizes for their creative stories at the ceremony held at Lerderderg Library on Saturday.
The awards are hosted by Moorabool Shire Libraries in conjunction with local writers Jem Tyley-Miller and Wayne Marshall, with the entries judged by Bacchus Marsh author Allyse Near.
The theme of the competition was ‘The Door’, designed to inspire imagination in participants, with 735 entries received this year.
Matthew Michalik won the upper secondary category for his short story entitled Perfect Stranger, receiving a $200 prize, with Mackenzie Stark as the runner up.
In the lower secondary category, Tyler Hounsell-Bachelor took first prize with a story called Something Wicked Comes This Way and Noah Barlow won the upper primary award with his story The Rock Pigeon Gang Strikes Back.
Matilda Marshall won the middle primary award with her piece called Sing, with Kumayl Rizvi and Meg Conroy placing as runners up in the category.
Lower secondary winner Tyler said he’d always loved writing but was quite shocked when his story was announced as a winner.
“I don’t know how to describe it, it was weird… it kind of felt like an out of body experience,” Tyler said.
Tyler has already started working on a new story that he hopes will become a full-length novel one day.
Many other local students were awarded encouragement awards and honourable mentions for their entries.
The Peter Carey Short Story Awards prizes were also announced on Saturday, with entrants from across the country eligible for the prize hosted by Moorabool Libraries.
Jordan Prosser took home the $2000 prize for his story titled Eleuterio Cabrera’s Beautiful Game and Christine Mackley was awarded the best local entry prize for her piece Holding My Breath.
All of the winning stories will be displayed at the library.
Full list of winners: www.moorabool.vic.gov.au/Services-and-support/Libraries/Creative-Writing-Opportunities/Moorabool-Young-Writers-Awards-2022.
