Spectator competition winners: short stories after Walter de la Mare

In Competition No. 3208 you were invited to submit a short story whose first or last line is: ‘“Is there anybody there?” said the Traveller.’ The given line opens Walter de la Mare’s slippery, haunting, much-anthologised ‘The Listeners’ and many entries echoed the 1912 poem’s supernatural theme.

An honourable mention to George Simmers and David Shields, and £30 each to the prizewinners below.

‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller.

‘“Asked” would be better.’

‘Or “enquired”?’

‘Too ornate. Keep to your authorial voice.’

Laura. Sacked from her academic post for the unacceptable views in her paper ‘Narrative Queerness – A Neostructuralist Critique’ and reduced to giving Creative Writing courses to amateurs like me. Laura, as short and plain as her prose style. Laura, with her Iris Murdoch hair, Agatha Christie teeth and Toni Morrison earrings. I adore her. I love her arid criticism and occasional droplets of praise. I adore it when she tells me my writing is awash with adverbs.