I submitted the first 5 chapters of Jac and the Wild Children to the Queensland Arts Council Regional New Writers Scholarship 2007. The winner for this year is Adair Jones of Clear Mountain. I did a quick Google search or her and now i dont feel so bad about loosing to her.

At the Queensland Writers Center Website i found that:

Adair has degrees in English, Comparative Literature and Linguistics. She worked for several years as the Fellowship Manager for the Rockefeller-funded Population Council in New York City, which allowed her to travel extensively. While she has worked in the areas of technical and academic writing, with some journalism thrown in, she has concentrated in the past few years much more on fiction. She is currently working on her third novel and undertaking a PhD at the Queensland University of Technology, Creative Industries Faculty.

So with people like that in the competition, i feel pretty good being one of the seven entry’s to receive a highly commended. The judges comments were oober encouraging:

“This is a creative and energetic tale, as experienced through the naive protagonist Jac(amoe). The story engages the reader with its clashes between innocence and authority in a surreal world where children are slaves to adult rulers. A metaphor perhaps for a free world economy and its evil consequences. The chapter opening designs reveal a lively aesthetic at play. Scenes in the factory with its stark dormitory setting, and the orphaned boys’ whispered asides and mutinous humour are well imagined. The island should be even more frightening fun.”

Yah! If anyone knows what a ‘free world economy’ is then tell me. You know your work is good when people start reading metaphors into it that aren’t there. However, having said that, I am constantly discovering metaphors in my work that even i didn’t know were there. So i sign off to you happy and content.