davidclensy.com

I was thrilled to win the Local Prize at the Frome Festival Short Story Competition 2023, for my story They’re Getting Help.  

The Sunday afternoon event, held at the Merlin Theatre in the Somerset town, brought together the local writing community – from teenagers to retirees – for a really inspiring celebration of the written word. But the entries had come from as far afield as Australia and Saudi Arabia, and it was wonderful to hear excerpts from many of the submissions.

So much hard work had gone into the event from the members of the Frome Writers’ Collective, as well as the readers and judges, including local novelists Alison Clink and Libby Page.

My own work tells the story of a young man labouring at a shipyard in Birkenhead in the 1950s, who slips and plummets from a ship into a dry dock. In the last moments of his life, as he lays at the base of the dock in the shadow of the hulking ship, he has a short time to recollect his own brief life, while his fellow shipyard workers reassure him “they’re getting help”.

The story will be published on the Frome Festival Short Story Competition website in the coming weeks, and an audio version will be broadcast on local radio station Frome FM.