Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition winners: short stories after Walter de la Mare

[Photo: AlxeyPnferov] 
issue 22 July 2023

In Competition No. 3208 you were invited to submit a short story whose first or last line is: ‘“Is there anybody there?” said the Traveller.’ The given line opens Walter de la Mare’s slippery, haunting, much-anthologised ‘The Listeners’ and many entries echoed the 1912 poem’s supernatural theme.

An honourable mention to George Simmers and David Shields, and £30 each to the prizewinners below.

‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller.

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