📚 Young Writers Tell Their Her-Stories! ✨
What a wonderful evening celebrating the creativity and talent of our young writers!
On Friday, Soroptimist International Cirencester and District welcomed more than 60 guests to Cirencester Public Library for the prize-giving ceremony of our inaugural Young Writers Short Story Competition.
There were audible gasps, delighted high-fives and plenty of smiles as our 17 young writers discovered that their stories had been published in a beautiful anthology. Every entrant became a published author — something to be truly proud of! 💜
Inspired by the theme Her Story – Women’s and Girls’ Voices from the Past, the stories took us across cultures, centuries and continents, bringing to life women and girls whose stories deserve to be remembered.
🏆 Congratulations to our prize-winners:
🥇 First prize: Sasha Naef-Foster, Veil of Blue
🥈 Second prize: Robin Forge, Fate of the Bad Dürrenberg Shaman
🥉 Third prize: Natasha Chivers, Grace O’Malley
🌟 Highly Commended: Ella Meara, Lydia Rungasamy, Mimi Johnson and Elsie Everett.
We were delighted to welcome Dr Roz Savage MP for South Cotswolds and Councillor Andy Jopp, Mayor of Cirencester, who joined our three published author judges — Judith Cutler, Caroline Bradley and Rose Day — and Soroptimist Lesley Gordon in presenting the prizes.
Roz shared a lovely personal connection, recalling that she entered a short story competition herself at the age of nine. As part of the Cirencester History Festival fringe programme, our celebration of these many “Her-Stories” felt especially fitting. The judges were impressed by the young writers’ fresh perspectives and thoughtful consideration of women whose lives and stories have often gone undocumented.
A particularly moving moment came when Caroline Bradley shared her own experiences of Afghanistan before reading from Sasha’s winning story, Veil of Blue.
👏 A huge thank you to the school and college librarians who helped make the competition possible, the Cirencester History Festival and Corinium Museum for their collaboration, and Octavia’s Bookshop, Waterstones, Crumps Barn Publishing and Busy Fingers Printing for their generous support.
We were also thrilled to receive encouragement from Queen Camilla, who described the competition as “a brilliant initiative”.
Most of all, congratulations to every young writer who took part. Your stories matter, and we hope this experience inspires you to keep writing!
📖 Free copies of the Soroptimist Young Writers Short Story Competition 2026 Anthology are available from participating school libraries and Cirencester Public Library.
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