Head of English wins Sunday Star Times competition

An evocative story written by Head of English, Rebecca Ball has won the 2024 Sunday Star Times Short Story Competition, which saw her take home a record prize of $15,000.

Given the prestigious competition attracted around 600 entries from writers across New Zealand, this is an outstanding achievement for Rebecca, who alongside Writer-in Residence, Kerrin Davidson, works tirelessly to promote writing at St Andrew’s College.

Rebecca told the Sunday Star Times she was “thrilled and humbled” to win the competition with her story, How it is in dreams, which focuses on two young people living in Christchurch, with the main character’s future in law suddenly in doubt.

I hope this will remind the incredible student writers of St Andrew’s that every piece of writing has a home: sometimes you just have to try multiple places, and edit multiple times, until you find it.

Rebecca’s story will be published in the Sunday Star Times in late December.