First place

Snatcher in the Bog by Abby Voss Spread 1

The Will-o’-the-Wisp lived low in the marsh

A mischievous, horrible sprite.

It tricked fairy-folk with a mystical mist

And stole all their sparkle-and-light.

It carried a magical lantern aloft

Filled with the sparkle it nicked.

The Wisp was too much of a villain to ever

Use light it had legally picked.

Judges’ comments: Fun, playful and confident with an unconventional heroine to save the day.

How long have you been writing for?

It feels like I’ve been writing since I was small; stories to entertain the class, poems passed along the lines during university lectures, and fact sheets and finance workbooks during my 13-year career in marketing. However, I started writing for children around 12 years ago and completed my first full-length MG story in 2015. After re-organising my uncle’s diaries, I also self-published his account of singlehandedly sailing the Atlantic, before finding my niche in children’s rhyming stories.

Why did you decide to enter the competition?

I absolutely love writing stories for children but was beginning to think that my mum telling me they were great, was possibly not enough. As I consider Julia Churchill and Amy Sparkes to be the dynamic duo of the story-telling showground, I thought that if they liked my work, it would prove to me that maybe I should keep going.

What was your inspiration for the story?

Having two school-aged children, I was amazed at the amount of time they spent in junior school worrying about what others think of them and allowing a negative comment or unkind action to ruin their whole day. I had already been toying with the idea of including a will-o’-the-wisp as the protagonist in a story I was currently writing and the thought about making it a sparkle thief popped straight into my head. I made the wisp an ‘it’ rather than a ‘he/her/them’ because I wanted to acknowledge that it might not always be people who are capable of stealing our sparkle; quite often it might be situations or feelings.

How did you write it?

I always write in rhyme straight from the first line. I dream in rhyme; it’s quite ridiculous! If I get stuck on a particular rhyme as I’m making my way through the story, I write in prose and then come back to it later. I’m pretty linear with my writing although I will have the lesson or point I’m trying to make right at the start and work towards revealing that as the story unfolds.

Top tips for writers thinking of entering in 2023?

I think this is a fabulous competition. The fact that Amy runs this with her agent Julia means that your story is going to be read by two of the best story heads in the business – an author and an agent, which is priceless for budding storytellers. Twitter: @vossywrites