2025 American Writers Review Contest Results Announced

We’re pleased to share that the results of the American Writers Review 2025 Contest have now been published on the AWR website. It was a privilege for our group to serve as judges for this international literary event, and we extend our warm congratulations to the winners, finalists, and all who submitted work.

You can read the official announcement here:

https://www.americanwritersreview.com

We’ll be back soon with some reflections on the judging process, the entries, and what made the winning pieces stand out.

Extended Deadline for American Writers Review Contest: Submit Now!

Regretting that you didn’t enter this year’s American Writers Review literary contest? Or that you didn’t quite make the deadline? Well, we have some good news: If you’ve visited the San Fedele Press submissions page recently you’ll have noticed that the deadline for contest entries has been extended to August 7. That’s right – there’s still time to send off that poem, short story, non-fiction, or dramatic monologue, photograph, or artwork. In short, written work and imagery is invited. Full details are available in our July blog post, linked here. Or if you want to head straight to the submissions page, do that by clicking here.

Contest deadline: 11:59 PM on August 7 (US Eastern Time)

This year’s competition judges are Margaret and Barry, on behalf of Elwood Writers. The theme: Buyers’ Remorse. Interpret that any way you wish.

Happy writing, and good luck!

American Writers Review Contest: Enter Before August 1

Buy Now, Regret Later – a literary contest

A timely reminder from Margaret that the closing date for the American Writers Review literary contest is creeping up. The theme: Buyers’ Remorse. This year’s judges come from Elwood Writers – Margaret and Barry can’t wait to read your entries. The contest closes on 1 August.

You’ve a bit longer if you want to send a regular submission to the journal: they can be sent for the editorial team to consider right up to 1 September.

If you haven’t started on a submission or even thought about it yet, there’s still plenty of time remaining. All the relevant links are in Margaret’s blog post, above.

Happy writing, and good luck!

Elwood Writers is judging the AWR Contest 2025 | Theme: Buyers’ Remorse

Elwood Writers has been invited to judge this year’s American Writers Review (San Fedele Press) literary contest – we’re delighted to be on board. The theme is:

Buyers’ Remorse
It seemed like such a good idea…. But now?
American Writers Review

Submissions are now open and close on August 1, 2025. Please click here to read the guidelines carefully before submitting. There’s a cash prize involved for the overall winner.

The anthology is simultaneously accepting regular submissions – the window for this closes a month later, on September 1, 2025. Again, please familiarise yourself with the guidelines before submitting your work. See here for details.

Editor Donna Ferrara is seeking contributions in a wide range of categories, including visual art and photography – and, for the first time, drama/monologues.

For our new issue, we are seeking written work and imagery that springs from the moment when the best-laid schemes have turned to dust. The crash can be obvious, subtle, even not yet realized. The piece’s point of view could be disappointed or triumphant or oblivious. The moment of remorse could be immediate, in the future, or long in the past.
American Writers Review

We’ve established a very productive relationship with San Fedele Press over the years, with our fiction, memoir and poetry appearing in a variety of their publications. International literary connections such as this are so important, and well worth nurturing, especially in these troubled times.

If you decide to enter the contest, and we hope you do, we look forward to receiving your work.

Best of luck!

Currents: What I’m working on, by Barry Lee Thompson

Here, better late than never, is my contribution to the Elwood Writers ‘Currents’ series, where members of the group talk about what they’re currently working on. Jenny started the ball rolling with her post from 17 July 2022, followed by Helen on 2 November of that year.

Initially I wanted my second book to be a linked collection of four novellas, each exploring an aspect of life after dark. There are some people for whom daytime spaces can be alienating, even suffocating – for them the night can be a source of ease, and it’s that ease that interests me. But as I began to write the stories, the lines between them blurred, they began to overlap, and I came to realise that it might be more useful to think of the work as a novel.

I’ve been constructing the novel piece by piece, building a narrative from smaller stories and vignettes – writing in the spaces, elaborating, moving parts around, solving problems of place, structure, tense and point of view as I go. I might think, here’s a pertinent episode: how do I fit it in? It’s an absorbing project.

In an Elwood Writers workshop in 2022 I set myself a goal of having an entire draft ready by the end of 2023. A lot happened for the group last year, and the months sped by faster than I had anticipated. So I adjusted the goal to the end of this year. Which is already in sight. Or maybe it’s ages away, depending on your attitude. But whether looming or distant, I enjoy having a deadline of some kind in mind – it keeps me on my toes. And there’s always room for adjustments.

Elwood Writers and Cover to Cover: Happy 500th Episode!

On 24 November last year, Cover to Cover on Vision Australia Radio reached an important milestone: episode 500 of the program. In the introduction to that week’s broadcast, producer and presenter Tim McQueen points out that over the last ten years approximately 1500 stories have been read on Cover to Cover, by about 500 different authors.

Tim and the team are always keen to promote Australian authors, and Elwood Writers has enjoyed a tremendous amount of support and encouragement almost since the program began. We’ve created the material for a number of special themed episodes, starting with, appropriately enough, ‘Starting Over’ for episode 38. On many occasions we’ve had the opportunity to visit the studios and read our work on-air. And we even get a mention in this anniversary episode. And, our very own Helen McDonald gets her very own shout-out as the program’s most-read author in 2020. Quite an achievement – well done to Helen!

We wrote a blog post to publicise episode 500 last year but in the end-of-year festive flurry we neglected to share the podcast of the program after it had been broadcast. We’re remedying that right now – you’ll find all the links you need below.

Click here to go to the podcast of episode 500. You can listen directly, or download the audio file for later, should you so wish.

Click here for an audio file of the episode.

For more information about the work of Vision Australia Radio, click here.

If you’d like to revisit our November 2023 blog post about episode 500 of Cover to Cover, click here.

You’ll find recordings of all the themed episodes that Elwood Writers has created for Cover to Cover by clicking this link here.

Thanks as always to Tim and the entire team at Cover to Cover and Vision Australia Radio for all their valuable support – it means a great deal and is very much appreciated. And huge congratulations to you all on reaching 500 episodes. Here’s to many more episodes, and many more milestones.

Happy listening, reading, and writing to everyone.

Elwood Writers on “Best of Cover to Cover 2023”

Happy New Year from Elwood Writers.

Tune in to Vision Australia Radio (VAR) this Friday at 1:00pm (AEDT) for another chance to hear our tribute to Jennifer Bryce on Cover to Cover (CTC), originally broadcast on 4 August last year, and now featuring in The Best of CTC 2023.

As always, you can listen on the radio if you’re in Australia, or online from anywhere in the world. Details can be found at the VAR website – just click here for more info.

First post of 2024, and the new year is less than 12 hours old. We’re hitting the ground running. Jenny would be proud.

Here’s hoping for a safe and peaceful 2024.

A literary gathering

On Saturday 2 December, Margaret McCaffrey hosted a small literary gathering at her home – she’d invited fellow Elwood Writers Helen McDonald and Barry Lee Thompson to join her, and to read short pieces of their work. Margaret wanted to dedicate the afternoon’s event to Elwood Writers co-founder Jennifer Bryce, who died earlier this year.

Mindful of the health and safety of her guests, Margaret kept the numbers low (and the windows open) – the event was lively and entertaining, and copies of the new edition of 20 Artists, featuring all three members of Elwood Writers, were available, hot off the press, having only been released the day before.

The readings included poetry and haiku from Helen, short fiction from Barry, and memoir from Margaret herself. Tony Thomas was invited to read from Jennifer’s body of work, and he presented a short piece from her trove of oboe-themed stories, as well as an extract from Lily Campbell’s Secret, Jenny’s debut novel. The only thing missing was Jenny, but it felt as if she were there, watching, smiling; at times, if you listened carefully, you’d swear you could hear the sounds of her beloved oboe …

At this week’s Elwood Writers meeting, the final of 2023, it was agreed that the event had been a success, and more importantly had rounded off the year in a hugely positive way. Thank you to Margaret for asking us along, and for inviting us to read from our individual work. It was clear that a lot of thought and preparation went in to the very elegant afternoon – it shone through and was much appreciated.

It’s given us a taste for public readings again, and we discussed how we might take that forward. The last Elwood Writers public soiree was held at St Kilda Library on 25 August 2018, over five years ago. Where does the time go! Perhaps it’s time to start thinking about another event in the not-too-distant future. Anyway, we’re sure to return to this topic when we reconvene in February for our first meeting of 2024.

The holidays might have begun for Elwood Writers, but this isn’t our last blog post of the year. There are one or two more to follow before 2023 is out.

For now, have a peaceful weekend.

Elwood Writers shares the celebration: 500 Cover to Cover episodes

This Friday marks the 500th edition of Vision Australia Radio’s weekly literary program Cover to Cover. Produced and hosted by Tim McQueen, the program delivers book readings and short stories to an audience not just in Australia but across the globe.

Elwood Writers has a long history of contributing to Cover to Cover, starting with our very first dedicated broadcast – appropriately titled ‘Starting Over’ – back in January 2015. That was episode 38 of Cover to Cover. Our latest program was a tribute to our much loved and missed co-founder Jennifer Bryce (episode 484), which aired on 4 August this year.

Many congratulations to Tim and the entire team at Cover to Cover. Happy 500th episode! We’ll be listening.

Podcast: Cover to Cover Ep. 484 | Tribute to Jennifer Bryce

The Elwood Writers tribute to colleague and friend Jennifer Bryce was broadcast on Vision Australia Radio’s Cover to Cover last Friday, 4 August 2023 (repeated Sunday 6 August). If you missed the program, or if you’d like to listen again, it’s now available as a podcast at the link below:

The recording can also be accessed via the MP3 audio-file below:

We hope you enjoy this celebration of Jenny’s life and work.

Best wishes,