As Judge Fiona Cooper explained, “There are two winners this month since the qualities of both stories are so different and excellent in their own way. Beautiful writing and reflection and a style begging to develop a novel on one hand; on the other a story so stark it reads like an apocalyptic vision.”
For those who know my writing, it's not hard to guess that mine's the latter story. This is what Fiona had to say about Passing Away:
“The concept of this story has an echo of both George Orwell and Auberon Waugh at their bleak incisive best. In our current political climate where even the doom laden Cassandra would appear quite jolly, this story takes materialist policy to an inevitable and hideous conclusion. The last line is a spine chilling stroke of genius.”
Fiona's spot on as far as the George Orwell influence goes. Having just finished re-reading 1984, I got to wondering about the more negative consequences of problems that have reared their heads since Orwell's time, such as an ageing population, mass unemployment and a scarcity of resources.
And so Passing Away was born. However, not wishing to spoil the story, I'll post the link once it's posted on the GSSC site.
Oh, and the biggest buzz was being compared to such a visionary.
Below are links to my two Global Short Story Competition winners, my short-listed story for the National newspaper, Abu Dhabi, and my Canterbury Tale published by Coscom Entertainment:
http://coscomentertainment.com/?p=159
http://www.globalshortstories.net/winningstoriesjuly09.pdf
http://www.globalshortstories.net/winningstoriesdec09.pdf
http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/short-story-a-day-for-decisiveness
Happy writing!