Inspirations & results
Welcome to Inspirathlon 2024! This is the main page for our competition. Everything you’ll need to take part is here: competition information, Inspirations and round results. We’ll be keeping this page updated throughout the competition, so be sure to check back for the latest information. You can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram to get the very latest announcements, which may save you an RSI from refreshing this page.
(For our non-competitors: Inspired by what you’ve read but don’t have a ticket? You can still join in for Rounds 2 & 3.)
A quick reminder of the rules
- Respond to the Inspiration (loosely, if you like).
- All literary forms are acceptable.
- 800 words maximum per entry.
- Entries in .doc or .pdf, please.
- Entries must be received before the deadline.
- Send entries to submissions@eggplusfrog.com
- Put your ticket code in the subject line, please.
round 1
Inspiration:
Entry deadline:
7/10/24, 23:59 (BST)
Results:
13/10/24
Our first Inspiration is about growth, time and the natural world. Condensing 1210 days into 8 minutes, this video reveals growth as a process of movement, shape and colour, allowing us to see what human-time normally obscures. We love this video because, seen this way, each of the plants takes on a new kind of life. It makes us wonder what our own lives might look like on fast forward. (Also, we like the music.)
Best of luck. We’re rooting for you!
Results:
Judge's comments:
First and foremost, congratulations to everyone who submitted work and to the ten shortlisted authors whose work I had the chance to read. There’s nothing more exciting than seeing so many new words being generated, and it’s a real honour and privilege to be a part of this project.
Writing to a prompt has a unique set of challenges. It’s easy to end up with a number of stories written in a similar way or tackling similar themes. And, just as a plant grown with the aide of a trellis can sometimes topple when the support is taken away, work written to a prompt can sometimes lean so far into the prompt that the piece doesn’t work when read on its own. However, for this competition, I was blown away by the impressive variety of themes, styles and structures, as well as the risk-taking and innovation. I found all ten pieces on the shortlist to be compelling, ambitious, interesting and original.
So that I could approach each piece with the freshest eyes possible, I read all the shortlisted pieces at least twice before I looked at the prompt. (I was strict with myself about not peeking during the run-up.) It is a testament to the skill of these authors and the freshness of the prompt that I couldn’t guess what on earth the prompt might be from reading the shortlisted work.
All ten pieces have many aspects I admire, and so choosing and ranking my top three was an excruciating process – I was rethinking and rearranging until the very last minute. In the end, I found myself drawn to pieces that took risks, whether that was with structure, format, subject matter or even the choice of a quiet, gentle ending.
Huge congratulations again to everyone who participated, and special thanks to all the authors on the shortlist. It was an honour and privilege to spend time with your words, and I’ll look forward to reading more of your work once your names are revealed.
-Ingrid Jendrzejewski
Highly commended
(in no particular order)
PlantWatch 2024 Exclusive: The Lives and Deaths of Bekah Blake’s Houseplants
Ashleigh Adams
The Boy with A Forest in His Head
Donna Greenwood
Estate Gardening
Chad Frame
Breakfast & Other Things We Do Over and Over
Sarah Lynn Hurd
All This Choreography
Adam Ainsworth
Wisteria
Christy Hartman
The Plant Does Nothing But Grow
Elysia Rourke
3rd place
Judge's comments:
‘Whenua’ is a gentle, touching story about family, loss, life, love, and heritage, told from the point of view of a child. The voice is simple and straightforward, focusing on the narrator’s observations and questions, but the story is deep, faceted and nuanced. What’s not said is as important as what’s on the page; we readers see the grown-up story unfolding between the lines. It can be incredibly difficult to pull off happier endings, but this story does so with aplomb. The story resists the temptation to over-simplify or to overplay its hand. There is no easy, overly neat solution to the challenges the mother and her children face; the new father and his attitudes are still there. However, there is a glimmer of realisation, hope and quiet self-assertion that we can, if we desire, imagine growing larger and stronger alongside the family trees in the garden.
2nd place
Judge's comments:
‘Ruminations on High School Biology’ is a skilfully-rendered hybrid/hermit-crab piece composed of diary entries, doodles, and science homework lab notebook submissions, complete with red-pen teacher comments. The story is pure high-school melodrama – Sheryl likes Jonathan but does he like her?! – told with playfulness, wit, a fantastic sense of humour and sharp comic timing. The high-school voice is note-perfect in its ups and downs, and even though the story is a familiar one, there is so much delight in the telling; I had a big grin on my face every time I watched it all unfold through these assembled documents. As light and airy as this piece seems on the surface, an incredible amount of meticulous crafting and attention to detail has been required to make it read so effortlessly.
1st place
Judge's comments:
This piece took my breath away. It’s playful and daring and simple and wise all at the same time. I love the way it jumps through time, the way it brazenly addresses the reader, and the way it knows exactly when to lean in and when to step back, inviting the reader to fill in the gaps. I’m also in love with the way it incorporates a short playlist into the story-telling; as I got to know it and realised what an important role the music played, I stopped thinking of it as a story and started thinking of it as a mixed-media piece. The fact that the last playlist item comes at the end is a stroke of brilliance; I love endings that feel like new beginnings, and the fact that we’re invited to listen to a piece of music gives us a structured format, space, mood and time interval in which we start that new story in our minds. I felt as if the on-the-page narrator was holding out a hand and inviting me to step inside the text for that final 1 minute and 49 seconds. The more I read and listened, the more I came to feel this piece embodies the delicious hardiness of hybrid plants: each time I revisited it, I found more to enjoy.
round 2
Inspiration:
Ten Heads, George Luks (C. 1905)
Entry deadline:
21/10/24, 23:59 (BST)
Results:
27/10/24
Our second Inspiration is about personality and imperfection. What story does a face tell? How about ten faces? When we discovered this drawing, we were struck that it is both unfinished yet complete, unrefined yet sophisticated. Drawn on a page of a notebook, possibly just for practice, these ten faces have nonetheless survived the decades, passing between hands and transposed into lines of code until they are here, looking you in the face, through the screen of a device unimaginable when they were created. That’s inspirational.
Good luck. There are great things a-head!
Need some more inspiration?
