THE winners of The Morrab Library Children’s Short Story Competition 2025 were announced at a prize giving ceremony in Penzance on Saturday, September 27.

The shortlisted writers, their parents and guardians, along with the competition judges, gathered to celebrate the fantastic array of entries for this biannual competition and were presented with their prizes.

The library received entries from across Cornwall with great participation from local schools and many teachers submitting their pupil’s creative writing to the competition. It was then judged anonymously by a panel of four stellar judges.

Teacher and writer Annamaria Murphy as well as double BAFTA winning screenwriter, Peter Moffat, returned to judge this year, alongside two new additions - playwright Sarah Connors, and The Morrab Library’s current Writer in Residence, editor and co-founder of Inkfish magazine, Peter McAllister.

Commenting on the judging process Peter McAllister said: “It was a privilege to read such a collection of strong, confident voices. A true testament to the young talent we have here in Cornwall. Entrants presented fresh ideas and powerful storytelling in so many forms: poignant, humorous, experimental, and everything in between. It was a joy to read them all and a real task to choose the winners.”

The judges whittled down their selection to a first, second and third prize in each of the age categories (four to seven, eight to 11 and 12 to 16) including a couple of highly commended entries that they could not resist mentioning.

First prizes were awarded to:

  • Enid Ashe in the four to seven year old category for her story ‘Forbidden Art’ which imagines a world without art.
  • Astrid Shadrick in the eight to 11 category for her story ‘The English Lesson’, which judge Annamaria Murphy described as “very astute about creativity. It should be compulsory reading for all English teachers.”
  • Erin Clements in the 12 to 16 category for the story ‘Left to the Dogs’, described by Annamaria as “a very mature coming of age story, touching on themes of being accepted, friendship and being an outsider.”

The judges were highly impressed by the calibre of the entries. In the four to seven age group, the judges chose ‘The Water Spirit’ by Harris Lyne (second prize), ‘I have long hair’ by Florence Buckingham (third prize) and ‘Slug vs. Spider’ by Rafi Thorgood-Wynter (highly commended).

In the eight to 11 age group, they selected ‘Bugs’ by Lochie Sleeman (second prize), ‘The Mirror’ by Denny Kaya (third prize), ‘My Friend Max’ by Raegan Wilkes (highly commended).

In the 12 to 16 category second prize was awarded to Coby Smart for the story ‘The Roman Swim’ and Jessica Carthey received third prize for ‘The Cat and Mouse’.

The competition was sponsored by library member Nigel Castle who kindly donated many of the prizes.

Peter Moffat commented: “It was a joy and a privilege to read so many great stories from so many talented young writers.”

The shortlisted stories are available to read at The Morrab Library and will be added to The Morrab Library archive, as well as appearing on their website.