Powers & Irish Times Short Story Comp

MOONlit

Yes well done for getting to the short list.
So who is gonna win? I dont agree about the ball of wool story.Personally I thought it was a bit annoying. I love, the one about the cats - very startling and very polished,. Also the one about father and daughter in the solicitors office very nice., tender really.
Fair play - no mentions of powers whiskey necessary to win. Any more recs to read?

hous

Lilly Prehistoric Tin wrote: »

Longlist 17 is headed 'Short List' when you actually go into it. Is that it then?

Reference to short list has now been removed.....more to come?

Madammoiselle

Longlist 17 has disappeared so maybe it really is the short list and they are updating it as we speak!

MOONlit

Someone made a mistake during the uploading today?.......

Madammoiselle

MOONlit wrote: »

Someone made a mistake during the uploading today?.......

Maybe so, maybe so.
There's still a whole week before the winner is announced so I think the longlist may not be over with yet.
Also, a few weeks ago they said the winner will be announced on the 12th, then changed it to the 19th.
They obviously enjoy wrecking peoples heads!

hcass

Ha ha I made it too! Its def a set up thing cos my story was embarrassingly bad!

heebeejeebees

I don't think Longlist 17 was the shortlist because none of the names I checked from Longlist page 17 showed up in the previous 16 pages. That would mean they'd have to have decided on the shortlist 5 days ago. Otherwise they would have known the shortlist for the last 5 days. That seems kinda unlikely.

Kinski

MOONlit wrote: »

Fair play - no mentions of powers whiskey necessary to win. Any more recs to read?

Are there no stories mentioning Powers? I'd be very surprised, considering last year's winner.

psicic

Ha - now I don't feel quite so crazy for thinking I saw part 9 of the longlist yesterday.

I've noticed as well as removing reference to a shortlist/longlist entry number 17 in the blog, they've added back in the 'Check back soon – the longlist continues' tag at the end of the most recent entries.

In all fairness, with the 4,200 entries you couldn't blame them for taking this long and - I might be naive on this one - I wouldn't write off any story in the longlist just yet by saying they aleady know the winner. I mean, there are 7 judges going through nearly 4,200 stories - that a minimum of 600 stories each - certainly doable, but I doubt judging this competition is going to be the full time pursuit of any of the judges.

Also, while the blog says winner will be announced on 19th May, the competition entry page said 26th May - which may well end up being the more realistic prospect.

D-FENS

Well, here's to a few more days of hope, folks
Good luck

echo beach

I can stop checking as I've made it onto the (very) longlist with what I thought, and still think, is a fairly weak effort. Maybe I'm just too critical of my own work.

It isn't that easy to produce a coherent story in 450 words so this longlist may include everything reasonably well written that fits into the theme and didn't have any spelling or grammar mistakes and it will be what the judges tackle to draw up the shortlist. I can't see the judges reading all 4,000+ entries. Somebody will have been tasked with weeding out the truly awful.

hous

They seem to be releasing in batches of 8, and it's now back to long list 16, maybe tomorrow will bring us up to 24???

Madammoiselle

hous wrote: »

They seem to be releasing in batches of 8, and it's now back to long list 16, maybe tomorrow will bring us up to 24???

Who knows what today will bring! I'd like an update from the Irish times tbh, just a lil statement telling us what is happening.

c68zapdsm5i1ru

I emailed the Irish Times yesterday to ask why short list was written at the top of longlist 17. They said it was an admin error and part 17 was part of the longlist. I thought it was very strange that they would announce the short list in such a low key way.

MOONlit

Kinski wrote: »

Are there no stories mentioning Powers? I'd be very surprised, considering last year's winner.

well Kinski, I was referring to the now erroneus short list. I believed they were the winners and the ones that I skimmed through didnt seem to mention it whiskey.
I dont think it matters at all whether its mentioned or not mentioned. Otherwise they would have said so at the beginning, one way or another. I think they are looking for the best story regardless. They are very clear in what they want. They gave clear guidlines, just like they did last year. I notice that some people have integrated its mention into their story, in a sort of artful way,so that it doesnt stick out like a sore thumb. Thats cool! But personally, its all down to the best story with or without, I believe.

pickarooney

Has anyone a direct link to some of the better stories?

c68zapdsm5i1ru

MOONlit wrote: »

well Kinski, I was referring to the now erroneus short list. I believed they were the winners and the ones that I skimmed through didnt seem to mention it whiskey.
I dont think it matters at all whether its mentioned or not mentioned. Otherwise they would have said so at the beginning, one way or another. I think they are looking for the best story regardless. They are very clear in what they want. They gave clear guidlines, just like they did last year. I notice that some people have integrated its mention into their story, in a sort of artful way,so that it doesnt stick out like a sore thumb. Thats cool! But personally, its all down to the best story with or without, I believe.

As it wasn't mentioned as a requirement under the conditions of the competition it would be very unfair to use it as a criteria when judging, in my opinion. I think Powers have already got a good deal for their €10,000, - their logo and a mention of them in the Irish Times practically every Saturday for the past few weeks plus the publicity that will surround the announcement of the winner and the publication of the book.

Kinski

Given that last year's winner was less a story featuring Powers than a Powers advertisement featuring a story, it will be interesting to see what they plump for this time around.

c68zapdsm5i1ru

Kinski wrote: »

Given that last year's winner was less a story featuring Powers than a Powers advertisement featuring a story, it will be interesting to see what they plump for this time around.

True, but they made it clear last year that they were looking for an advertisement slant to the story and that Powers had to be mentioned. This year they seem to be just the sponsors in the way that Hennessy Brandy sponsors the New Irish Writing competition.

kilternan

I've spent the last hour reading through your comments - really enjoyed myself - am glad I'm not the only one in this situation!

Madammoiselle

No update today!

c68zapdsm5i1ru

And longlist no 17 has still not been re-instated. Curioser and curioser.

tis a fine line

Lilly Prehistoric Tin wrote: »

True, but they made it clear last year that they were looking for an advertisement slant to the story and that Powers had to be mentioned. This year they seem to be just the sponsors in the way that Hennessy Brandy sponsors the New Irish Writing competition.

I didn't realise that they specified advertisement type stories last year...

So, unfortunately i submitted my entry with a few shameless references (anything for €10,000)

Haven't made the longlist yet anyway, to be honest i'm not proud of my submission, (having read some of the others!) but enjoyed the process none the less

Wooly Woo

Now, I searched for one of the names that was on longlist 17 and it's nowhere to be found. So I reckon no. 17 is actually the shortlist and was posted too early because they want to build it up for another week before announcing the winner, which they probably know already!

I'm not on any of the lists - boo-hoo!

Madammoiselle

There will surely be an update of some sort today! Only a week to go before the winner is announced! :-)

MOONlit

Well ,pickarooney a few stand out for me, if for no other reason, than their relative spice.
One is in the first couple of lists where a right strap gets her bside grazed against a stone wall for the pushin and shovin with a dubious mills and boon type.Its great fun amidst the endless stories mentioning death of loved ones and references to the ma and the da etc - actually it looks like an excerpt from a novel the author has written/is writing.
The other one is the one about the cats on the infamous shortlist 17. which does not reveal all until the end. That said an 18 year old read it and told me she had to run to throw up after it....so I dont know if its what they are looking for!!!!!
Yes re the short list -why did the words Short List appear on top of that list. Its not for no reason. Its is certainly a short list for something. One of the list has already appeared on the previous lists.

c68zapdsm5i1ru

Who wrote the story about the cats? I'd love to read it.

Madammoiselle

Thing is - isn't there 40 of the top stories going into the book? So imo the short list will be the top forty and longlist 17 (short list) only had around 15 or so names. I would give anything to make it into the book!

MOONlit

Bella bella, the one about the cats was on list 17, since removed as you know. However I googled an authors name from that list, which im fairly positive was the author of the cats story, Brendan sayer. The only one I could find is the person who wrote a history of orchids in Ireland book. So I just googled the book now to recall the name.

guy83

There were 29 names on List 17. I happened to have it open in a separate tab and was following the Boards.ie discussion when someone mentioned that the list had been pulled so I saved a copy locally.
My feeling is that it might have been a work-in-progress shortlist. Two of the 29 names on List 17 had already appeared in previous lists. Twenty-nine is an unusually large number to have just been the next installment of the longlist. It's also a strange number for a complete short list - which I imagine would be around the 40 mark to tie in with the proposed book of 40 to be published later in the year.
The whole thing was a bit of a fiasco and the subsequent silence from "The Powers Short Story Team" has not helped. I'd guess they're still working through the 4000+ entries. From these the obvious non-runners can be discarded and potential shortlist candidates can be identified. List 17 was possibly the working list of potential shortlist candidates so far.
The longlist is essentially a publicity exercise, I'd guess any story mentioning Powers gets automatically "long listed". It's all about generating a bit of buzz - for the competition and for Powers - and in fact the mysterious list 17, you could argue, just adds to this. If it had been my errror, that's how I'd argue it when the time came to answer questions.
If they stick to the 19th as the official publication date of the winning story, we're looking at a shortlist announcement early next week, after which the winner would soon have to be notified as there will have to be a presentation and photographs in time for whatever deadlines are in force for Saturday's Irish Times Magazine.
Otherwise, the announcment of the winner could be pushed out maybe another week - the 26th was the original date publicised a few weeks back.