The winners of the 2016 Grieve Writing Competition were announced after a beautiful afternoon of live readings at the Newcastle Conservatorium of Music, Saturday 27 August.

The 2016 anthology is now on sale.

All the prizewinners can be viewed on our website

We are deeply grateful to all our sponsors. Their generous financial support enables us to offer this competition and platform for our participants to write about their grief.  We hope their fearless words will bring families and friends closer and strengthen the love between them.

Julie Watts is a poet who lives in WA. Her poetry collection Honey and Hemlock was published by Sunshine Press in 2013.  Julie's work has appeared in Westerly, Australian Poetry Anthology, Australian Love Poems 2013 and Writ Poetry Review.

Julie was unable to attend the awards as she lives in WA so we were thrilled to let her know over the phone. The only problem was, we forgot about the east-west time difference but we think she was quite happy with the early morning wake up call!

Calvary

We dip a stick         sponge-tipped and soaked in water
into the wound of your mouth

you are thirsty
and this is our Calvary

bent knees on a white bed
your sharp bone relief

the afternoon         gathering up all its shadows.

My sister presses your hand to her cheek like a kiss
prolonged         stretching         back.

I hold your other         our skins tangled
what finger         yours         mine

fading icon         fading man
fallible as breath.

They turn you like liturgy

and we stroke the murmurless litanies of your skin
pale parchment encrypted with all our gospels

remember it ruddy and robust – throwing us high and catching
the rumbling Vesuvius of your laugh.

Driving home         kite surfers soar
above a chopped dark sea

tomorrow         I will rummage for wings
but today I curl on a stone like a plucked moth

small         flightless         shrouded in silence.

The sad duties of tending to a dying father are described with delicacy and reverence, and the sustained religious imagery creates a hallowed and haunting effect.

I particularly like the balancing of all this gravity with memories of the man he used to be -- with a 'rumbling Vesuvius' of a laugh -- and the move back into the outside world at the end, where 'kite surfers soar / above a chopped dark sea' and the writer acknowledges that she will also, tomorrow, 'rummage for wings', even though her present stage of grief leaves her 'like a plucked moth // small   flightless  shrouded in silence'.

The poem itself is very quiet, but its exemplary dedication to making every word important is a breathtakingly impressive demonstration of how language can help us find meaning and resolution for the pain of grief. Jean Kent, Grieve poetry judge, 2016

We are very proud of Hunter Writers Centre member Ted Bassingthwaighte who won the Good Grief - Seasons for Growth Award. 

“The dark room smelt of staleness and stale tobacco. A poverty of tired looking furniture and an ancient television the only witnesses. Apprehensive, Jones broke the uncomfortable silence.
‘I want to help you. Where’s your child?’ he asked respectfully.
Her sobbing now a language of its own, the woman nodded to towards a closed door at the far end of the room. Leaden footed, Jones neither wanted to move nor could he.” - from Sophia by Ted Bassingthwaighte

"The story is loosely based on my very first experience with a SIDs death as a NSW Police probationary constable in August 1987. During my 22 year career, mostly as a Detective, I attended numerous deaths of this kind. I always felt so useless. The loss and grief that smothered these families was like no other I experienced. I wanted to pay homage to all the mothers I tried to help but probably didn’t," says Ted.

Paperback copies of the 2016 Grieve anthology are now available from our online shop.

The 2014 and 2015 anthologies are also available in paperback and via ebook through Smashwords, Barnes & Noble and Scribd. Click here

What about a gift? The Grieve books are a thoughtful gift for someone who has suffered a loss.  A copy of Grieve with a note saying "Thinking of you" can let them know you care.

Caring is their mission