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Winners:
Under 11:
1st place: Jazmin Bartram- The Biology Set
2nd place: Theo Blott- the Black Hole Files
3rd place: Matthew Griffin- Sam The Salmonella Bug
12-17:
1st place: Rachel Plumb- Boron Saves The Day
2nd place: Samantha Fisher- Double Suicide
3rd place: Laura Hankins- Expansion:The Life and Times of Edwin Hubble
18+:
1st place: Anne Helme- The Mysterious Fauna of the Regent's Canal
2nd place:Lucy Mouland- There's Only One Dion Dublin
3rd place: Andy Blackford- The Mast
Anthology Sponsors: Inspire would like to thank for following organisations for their support of the competition.
Prize donors: we would also like to thank all those who have kindly donated prizes including-
Gillian Cross
Carol Vorderman
Hollywood Cinema
Castle Museum
The Playhouse
Castle Mall
Nick Arnold
Norwich Theatre Royal
Norwich Puppet Theatre
Catherine Webb
Robert Rigby
Usborne Publishing
Glenn Murphy
Andrew Cheer
Bayer Crop Science
Inspire Discovery Centre - Events
Welcome to the Inspire Writing Competition.
The competition has come to its' conclusion and the winners have been announced and can be found on the sidebar to the right. Thank you to everyone who entered, we were bowled over by the entries that were sent in. Please come back to this page soon to find extracts of the winning stories for you to enjoy.
All the winning entries will be published in a special anthology that will be available soon, please keep watching for more news on the anthology which will be available to buy from Inspire and the Book Hive.
Anthology Update! We are currently waiting on artwork which should be through soon, then the anthology will be straight off to the printers so keep your eyes peeled soon!
Extract from The Biology Set- Jazmin Bartram
Inside the bathroom were all the plants, only much, much bigger. The venus fly-trap was snapping up anything it could see, including Caitlin's mum's favourite picture of a blue and red fish, which had been hanging above the bath, but was now firmly lodged halfway down the plant's neck. The celery was riding on the rubber dolphin that Tom kept in the bath. Somehow it had managed to fill the bath up with water, and tipped half of Caitlin's new bubble bath in. It was now riding the foam on the dolphin's back. All the dye was washing off, and it was making the bath turn a strange pale purple. The leaves sprouting out of its head had indeed turned purple. Its legs were red up one side and blue up the other.
The desert rose was lying in the sink, water dripping down from the tap, which fuelled it. It was absolutely enormous. Its giant leaves spread out of the sink and fell down to the floor like a weeping willow. It took up most of the bathroom and was growing bigger every minute. The carrot tops, which hadn't got a chance to grow yet, where hopping around the floor like spring chicks. Every now and again the venus flytrap would snap one up in its jaws.
"Where's the pitcher?" Caitlin choked, fearing the answer. But nobody answered her, they where too busy staring at all the clumps of soil, dye and plants lying round the room. Caitlin looked down at the neatly polished tiles to see a strange yellow sludge trail. It led from the pot that the pitcher had been in, down to the floor and across to the wall. There it started to ascend again. The trail led up to the ceiling and across it! It carried on until it reached the light, and stopped. For there, dangling like a jungle chandelier was the pitcher, swaying slightly. It was a lucky thing that the light wasn't on otherwise her mum might see it glowing up there. This thought gave Caitlin an idea.
Tom gave a sudden cry; the Venus fly-trap had spotted them! He swung the door shut just as it came galloping towards them. There was a thud as it hit it, hard.
"W... w...what...WAS THAT?" Caitlin's mum asked. But nobody answered her, they where all rushing off to the kitchen. Tom, for a few saucepans to wear as armour, and a frying pan as a weapon, Caitlin, for a piece of paper and a pencil. She decided that if she thought of a cunning way to outsmart the plants, then it was more likely she would defeat them than being harsh and trying to kill them.
Extract from Boron Saves The Day- Rachel Plumb
One fine day in Chemistshire, where there is always something going on, there was a disaster in the flats. Phosphorus from number 15, a highly reactive but very dense element was playing ping-pong with Silicon from next door, all was going well and they were having a good time. But unfortunately having lost several points in a row, the normally unreactive Silicon got angry and threw a jug of water over Phosphorus, well, his reaction was so violent that he ignited! And such is the fateful nature of the apartment design, this set the entire block of flats on fire.
Fortunately, due to the unstable nature of many of the elements who lived in the flats there was a very good fire alarm, on its sound everyone escaped down slides from their windows to react together in the playground outside. Boron quietly joined the elements to watch the spectacle of the flats in flames.
Suddenly…there was a shout from Shiny Silver from number 47 that her best friend Gold (flat 79) – a beautiful gleaming element had not escaped. She screamed for someone to save Gold. The temperature in the flats was rising, none of the Alkali Earths from the left wing were willing to help and the Noble gasses from the right wing were also useless. Everyone looked to shiny Aluminium, but he turned out to be a lightweight and refused to enter the building because it was far too hot and he would melt. Carbon was feeling rather soft so he refused, so it was up to Boron….
Extract from The Mysterious Fauna of the Regent's Canal- Anne Helme
That afternoon, Petra returned with her daughter. An excitable Katy raced along the corridor ahead of her mother.
"Where is it? Can I see it now?" she called.
Petra was glad that her office door was locked.
“Now Katy, you must be very careful, and not go too close to the cage. We don’t know much about this animal, and it might bite.”
Katy jumped impatiently as Petra searched for her keys, and the minute the door swung open, she rushed towards the cage.
"Mummy!" she squealed excitedly, "You found a Birbler!"
"A what?" said Petra. "I suppose birbler is quite good word for it - it will do ‘til we find out what it really is." Petra realised her daughter had put her face right up to the cage. "Katy! Move back a bit. We don't know if it's friendly or not."
The birbler had awakened at the voices around it, and was shuffling towards the sound.
"Of course it's friendly. It never bites people, and it’s never nasty. Well, sometimes it's a bit rude to big dogs, but then they're ever so horrible to it. Have you tried tickling it? You have to do it on the underneath of its tail. It really likes it, and that's what makes it sing."
"What a wonderful imagination you have my darling."
"It's not imagined," said Katy. "We read it, Mummy, don't you remember?"
A memory glimmered.
Prize Evening
On Friday 28th May we held a prize evening for everyone who made it onto the shortlist. Stewart White from BBC's Look East handed out the prizes and we were joined by other special guests including judges Denise Channing, Mark Wernham and Andrew Hook, patron Chloe Smith and committee member Ian Gibson. Prizes were handed out to all shortlisters and the winners were announced. There was also some unique science entertainment as members of Inspire performed some of their favourite experiments. Here are some of the highlights of the evening:
A big thank you to all the judges who gave up their free time for the competition, without them the competition would not have been possible : Terry Molloy, Sue Welfare, Sharon Griffiths, Alan Gibbons, Alex Scarrow, Denise Channing, Anne Osbourn, Mark Wernham, Andrew Cowan, Andrew Hook and Hugh Aldersey-Williams
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