Micro Story Competition 2022

One of the most successful creative writing projects organised by our school is linked to the writing of micro stories. These short tales are restricted to a maximum of a hundred words so there is a definite challenge in making sure that you grab the reader’s attention and demonstrate your skills with the use of language within such a limit.

The project usually has a connection to the other classes and events that the school puts together for our annual celebration of World Book Night. Although we were able to mark this occasion within our school in some different ways, we were unable to host our traditional event this year. We very much hope that the future years will allow us to welcome representatives from other schools in the way that we have enjoyed so much in the past.

This year’s competition was the biggest in terms of schools involved. Seven primary schools from around the wider Ljubljana area joined us in working with all of our young writers so they could put their creative writing skills on display.

Every World Book Night event has a particular focus, whether a specific writer or piece of classical literature. The projects for this school year involved around Octavia E. Butler, the legend of science-fiction writing. Not only did this mean that her work was covered in different ways within our regular classes but also that the themes for this year’s micro story competition were taken from words used in the titles of her novels and short stories.

From the hundreds of stories received from all the primary schools and from the students of Gimnazija Vič, the judges worked hard to come up with a shortlist. All of these pieces were published in a special booklet to mark the occasion. From that group of stories, a total of fifteen across both levels were judged to be worthy of special commendation. This smaller group received special certificates and a classic science-fiction novel as a prize for their excellent work.

We are happy to say that work has already started for planning the themes and events for next year’s World Book Night so we would like to congratulate all the young writers who did so well this year, thank all the mentors for their hard work and enthusiasm, and look forward to seeing what we come up with when it comes to our future work together.