I’m excited to be chairing a panel at Clevedon Literary Festival on Saturday 8th June. From 1.30pm until 2.30pm, I will be interviewing writers Keza O’Neill, whose story Lucky Strike placed 3rd in the 2023 Bristol Prize short story competition, and Julie Davies, winner of the inaugural Clevedon Literary Festival short story competition in 2023.
Book your tickets here for just £5 each. Bargain!
Taking place at St John’s Hall, Clevedon BS21 7XJ, the session will cover creative processes, inspiration, and how you know when you have a potentially award-winning story ready to send out into the world. We’ll talk about the impact of a prize win on your sense of yourself as a writer, as well as what these talented writers are working on now.
Find details of the whole summer festival (5th-9th June) here. There are masses of excellent talks and inspiring events taking place throughout the beautiful North Somerset coastal town across these days, as well as pockets of literary goodness throughout the year!
Your panellists
Keza O’Neill’s story ‘Lucky Strike’, a tale of thwarted rage and a commentary on the gentrification of coastal towns, recently won the Sansom Award and was awarded third place in the Bristol Short Story Prize with her story Lucky Strike. Keza has been longlisted for the Bath Short Story Award 2023, the CWA Debut Dagger 2021 and the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize 2019. Keza completed a Masters in Creative Writing in 2023 via The Open University for which she was awarded a Distinction.
Keza is a qualified Coach-Mentor and spent 12 years working in Diversity & Inclusion and Learning & Development in a global Tech company, supporting clients across 40+ countries and multiple timezones. She’s interested in the relationships between people and places and the significance of ‘home’ in shaping identity.
Julie Davies won the inaugural Clevedon Literary Festival short story competition with her story Remembrance in 2023. Her story Just Dessert was the second place winner in the Winchester Festival I Am Writing Flash Fiction Competition 2022.
Julie writes flash fiction, short stories, and poetry, and is currently working on her first novel. One of her favourites of the stories she’s written is about a Martian craterworm.
When she’s not writing, Julie enjoys time with her grandchildren, especially reading with them and encouraging their love of books. She also enjoys tending her garden, walking, visiting RSPB reserves, travelling, sewing, discussing books in her reading group, and a bit of drawing and mindful doodling whenever her mind needs a calming space.
Judy Darley is an award-winning writer, editor and creative workshop leader who relocated to Clevedon in December 2023. She is the author of short fiction collections The Stairs Are a Snowcapped Mountain (Reflex Press), Sky Light Rain (Valley Press) and Remember Me To The Bees (Tangent Books).
She previously judged competitions for National Flash Fiction Day UK and Oxford Flash Fiction Prize, among others, and is one of the judges for Clevedon Literary Festival Open Short Story Competition 2024. She won first prize in the New Writers UK Winter Story competition 2024 with her micro-tale A Bright Day.
In her other life, Judy is a Community Manager and helps to run conferences about financial wellbeing.