Presentation evening celebrating the 2025 competition
The presentation evening for The Bedford Competition 2025 took place on Friday 17th 2026 at the Mercure Hotel in Bedford, UK, brining together writers, supporters and competition organisers. The evening celebrated the achievements of this year’s winners and runner-up in both the short story and poetry categories, recognising the creativity and dedication showcased across all entries.
Guests included prize winners, shorlisted authors and local entrants, alongside representatives from charities that have benefited from this year’s competition proceeds, helping to mark the occasion and reflect on another successful year of inspiring writing and meaningful local impact.
As a non-profit initative, The Bedford Competition continues to champion literary talent while supporting important community causes.
Winner of the short story main prize - judged by Toby Litt
Judges comments:
I was shocked by how good this year’s stories are. Really shocked. I opened and read the contents of the first file and thought, ‘They can’t all be like this.’ And then I read the second story, and the third story, and the quality didn’t go down. In some cases, it rose. I judged the Bedford Competition back in 2016, and there has been a marked transformation in the entries. They are more confident, ambitious and entertaining. And so, to all of those who were longlisted and shortlisted, my thanks and congratulations. You intrigued, surprised, amused and floored me. You made my final decisions very difficult.
First – The Artist in the Mud
The story of a painter forced to continue creating in brutal captivity, it is at the same time a suspense thriller, a character study, and a moral tale worth of the nineteenth century Russians. But the simplest reason I could give for awarding The Artist in the Mud first prize is that it moved me the most.
Winner of the Poetry main prize - judged by Fran Lock
Judges comments:
My Career in unwelcoming is the poem to which I have awarded first place. It is the poem I kept coming back to, because it is the poem that seemed most to meet and fearlessly match the desperate absurdist energy of our increasingly unkindly days. It is also a poem that absolutely commits, from the very first line; that isn’t afraid of discomfort—of being ‘unwelcoming’. Any poem that has ‘Visualise drowning a kitten’ as its opening salvo is a poem that is willing to take risks. That’s exciting. It’s also nerve-jangling. From the title downwards everything’s a little off kilter: the strangeness of that syntax, with ‘unwelcoming’ as a kind of corporate noun; to the judicious use of ‘squirms’, just as the reader is beginning to shift in their seat. But it’s funny too, and full of witty flourishes: Alma’s ‘personal journey/ to professional detachment’; her first job as a ‘Gothic presence’. From which point on the speaker stacks idiosyncratic unpleasantness on top of outlandish unpleasantness. Yet somehow the exaggeration is never so over-the-top as to allow us to be comforted. I live in Kent, and after the last local elections a scheme to ‘spot/ illegals masquerading as local/ with over-polite, high-school English’ hardly seems like the stuff of dystopian fiction. And while there’s a manic relish to much of the phrase and image making (‘Your scowl’s too flabby./ Do it like you’re throwing a knife.’) I come to the end of the poem wondering if its true subject isn’t the terrible price we pay to live in the world. I find myself wondering what it was even Alma had to lose in order to remove her ‘fluffy stuff’. It’s easy to make good moral choices when you have good moral options, but when simply surviving renders us all complicit, what wouldn’t we choose in the end? This is an exhilarating, thought-provoking poem, and I cannot wait to see where its author takes us next.
Winner of the Cygnature short story prize - judged by Stephen Bywaters
Lilian Auinger, winner of the Cygnature prize for short story was unable to attend the presntation event. Dr. Nicola Darwood read the comments from Stephen Bywaters, judge of the Cygnature short story prize.
An excerpt of the story ‘The Scentamentalist’ was read by Jackie Horrocks.
Judges comments:
The Scentimentalist is a clever, highly inventive and thoroughly enchanting tale albeit with a chilling subtext. The scenes shimmer with surreal energy and the reader is simply drawn inexorably into the writer’s haunting, captivating and rather sinister world. A tremendous use of the senses and a secure narrative which—in every line—doesn’t fail to deliver. An awesome achievement and I’d like to think there will be other stories coming from the same pen. Also worthy of mention is ‘The Fox from Nowhere’; an exceptionally imaginative, dreamlike tale which left me wanting to read on. Likewise, ‘Of Love and Ruin’ was a serious contender with an intriguing, well-executed narrative. The voices in all three speak with a remarkable confidence and the quality of writing in each is worthy of the highest admiration. In short, the stories are masterfully crafted and effortlessly transported this reader to worlds beyond his own imagination.
Winner of the Cygnature Poetry prize - judged by Rishi Dastidar
Judges comments:
What was striking was, assuming my memory is playing ball, the radical difference between 2024’s entries, and this year’s. Not in quality, but in tone, pose, attitude, attack, even something as prosaic as length. 2025’s crop of poems was, in the main, bold in embracing an epic quality: widescreen in ambition, the stories they told, and the depth and detail with which they told them. As someone who is an avowed maximalist when it comes to their poetry, it was a delight to be served what other readers might have thought a
surfeit of feeling, an excess of emotion yes, but also ambition—that thrilling sense of a poet saying, ‘Dammit, I have much, much more to say, and you will listen.’ And by golly did they make me listen. The variety of subject matters broached—trans joy; the flying of England flags everywhere and anywhere; the delight of horses; and the corrosive effects of modern working life, amongst others—was delightfully expansive, and a valuable reminder that, when done
well, poetry can and should encompass everything and anything. There was one poem, above all the others though, that I found myself coming back to again and again. At first, I thought it was quiet, even mundane, in the company it was keeping. A simple tale of a relationship. But as it grew on me, I started to appreciate the acuity and skill with which that relationship had been
sketched: the secret codes and conversations and moments and memories that love is and becomes. The poem shows them expertly and wonderfully, and leaves us with a glorious closing image, Larkin-esque in its simplicity and purity. The charm with which everything in the poems is delivered can’t help but win you over also. Well, it certainly won me over. For all those reasons, the winner of the Cygnature Poetry Prize 2026 is ‘in which we buy mood rings at the british heart foundation’. Thank you to all of you who took the time to enter. You gave me a lot of joy through the poems you submitted. And do keep writing. Poetry needs your words.
Winner of the Bedford short story prize - judged by Kate Packman
Judges comments:
‘His Woods’ tells the tale of a young boy’s journey as he is plunged into adulthood by a ruined human world. The authentic setting is created by the writer with brevity, but it is no less impactful because of this. Nature takes centre stage in the narrative, but delicate touches remind the reader of the innocence of the protagonist despite the savagery depicted. A story of
survival and territory which evokes all the senses and leaves you questioning humanity. Quite an achievement for a short story.
Winner of Bedford poetry prize - judged by Hazera Forth
Judges comments:
I selected ‘Marra’ as the winning poem because of its control and craft. It presented a fully realised world—the pit, the seam under the sea, the ritual of peppermints carried in a pocket—and allowed its emotional centre to emerge
through action rather than declaration. The relationship between Jimmy and his pit pony, Sandy was revealed through small, repeated gestures, which gave the poem quiet authority and authenticity. It evoked memories of my late father who was a factory carpenter which may resonate with readers and connect them to the poem. Formally, the poem demonstrated confident handling of narrative free verse. Though not metrically fixed, it used variation
in line length and pacing to mirror shifts between labour, ceremony and memory. Concrete imagery anchored the work throughout, while the recurring peppermint motif provided structural cohesion. Dialect was used sparingly and effectively, adding cultural texture without excess. Subtle humour prevented the poem from slipping into sentimentality, and the contrast between public retirement celebration and private companionship created emotional tension without overt commentary. The final image felt restrained and earned, allowing the poem to close with simplicity rather than instruction. For these reasons, I felt ‘Marra’ stood apart this year. It combined emotional depth with technical control, demonstrating careful shaping, tonal balance and a maturity of voice.
Supporting local writers award 2025
The Writer’s Funding Award has been proudly presented to two outstanding local talents: Rae Leaver Rahman and Casey Stuart—congratulations to them both on this fantastic achievement!
Their certificates were awarded by Frank McMahon, chair of The Bedford Competition, in recognition of their creativity and promise. As part of their prize, each winner can choose between an inspiring residential course at the Avron Foundation or an enriching online programme with the Oxford School of Poetry.
2025 Charity Donations
The Bedford Competition is delighted to announce its nominated charities for 2025: Project 229 and FACES—two organisations making a meaningful difference in the local community.
Project 229 delivers a range of inspiring initiatives, including free adult learning classes designed to build essential skills, boost confidence, and support individuals in reading, writing, and preparing for employment.
FACES, a well-established independent local charity, provides vital practical and emotional support to families facing challenging circumstances, offering guidance and stability when it’s needed most.
Acknowledgements
The Bedford Competition Team would like to thank Richard Mann for hosting the event and for Jackie Horrocks, Lewis Spenser and Bill Lay from The Place Theatre Company for reading the excerpts from the short stories. Thanks also go to Liam Coles for reading the poems ‘Elegy for a Deleted User’ and ‘My Career in Unwelcoming’.
Feedback from the event
Comments received following the event:
I just wanted to drop you a message to thank you all for the evening last night. It’s quite a strange sensation to hear someone else read your story aloud to a room full of people! I thoroughly enjoyed it though, so thank you once again to you and the team. I’ve already ordered a frame for the certificate – I figure that looking at it whilst I tidy up the novel that ‘His Woods’ has become, will be all the inspiration I need. Robert Allen
I just wanted to reach out and say thank you to everyone at the Bedford Competition for such a lovely event – particularly since rushing for a train back to London prohibited me from speaking to more people afterwards! We had a lovely evening listening to the readings and chatting with others, and I really appreciate the opportunity the contest gave me to share my work. Maria Woodford
Just an email to say many thanks to the organisers of Friday’s event. It was a lovely evening and really gave a platform to the people who participated.
It was great to meet people from the local community who are interested in promoting different forms of writing, and I’ll try to get along to some meetings and events over the next few months. Mark Graham
