Introducing this year’s Susie Warrick Young Writers Award Category 1 runner up story,  I Do Not Know Which to Prefer by Saoirse Chu.

Byron Writers Festival hosts two student competitions, The Susie Warrick Young Writers Award and the Jesse Blackadder Prize, to support student writers. The Susie Warrick Young Writers Award celebrates the art of the short story and encourages emerging young writers in furthering their careers. Its two categories, yrs 7-9 and 10-12, invites all secondary years to participate.

Susie Warrick was a much-loved staff member at the Northern Rivers Writers Centre (now Byron Writers Festival). The Susie Warrick Young Writers Award was established to honour her memory.

This year, we received over 50 submissions across both categories. Young writers were asked to write an original short story up to 1000 words on any theme and we were taken aback by the quality of writing and the originality of ideas, which made it very difficult for our judges. We are constantly in awe of the talent in our region. We congratulate the students who dared to share their stories and we encourage all of you to keep writing!

The winning story of the Susie Warrick Young Writers Award Category 1 is Nipotino by Luisa Santucci. It will be published in the Byron Writers Festival magazine, northerly, alongside the winner of the Susie Warrick Young Writers Award Category 2, The Hunter by Floyd Whitaker, and the winner of the Jesse Blackadder Prize, Allegro Presto by Edith Barber.

The runner up story of the Susie Warrick Young Writers Award Category 1 is I Do Not Know Which to Prefer by Saoirse Chu. We are very happy to share this poetic story. It impressed our judges with its sophisticated and poetic ruminations on the nature of choice and ambiguity and on the way we evolve through life’s choices. It used and was inspired by lines from the poem Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird and used a host of literary techniques very well.

 

I Do Not Know Which to Prefer

by Saoirse Chu

I do not know which to prefer,  

The beauty of inflections, 

Or the beauty of innuendos, 

The blackbird whistling, 

Or just after. 

 

I do not know which I prefer, this or that, that or this. I it the past of the future

I want to remember, daydreams or memories, life ahead of me or behind?

I sit here in the classroom, numbing desk beneath my elbows, my head buried

in my sunken hands. Distant grumbling from the road, cars battling to arrive 

on time to their grey solitude. Distant chatter from my peers. Stories of  

irrelevance, stupidity, lies, hyperbole, fabrication.  

How is it all going to turn out? 

Memories of my past days, untroubled days, home days, childhood. Dreams  

of my future days, exciting days, city days, adulthood. 

Who will I meet there? Who will I forget? 

It’s always a constant battle here and there, back and forth, now and then. 

It seems that life has passed me by. I am in a rocking chair, not long after

starting to crawl. Childhood feels like it is peering over my shoulder, adulthood  

breathing down my neck. Neither is touching me, so I cannot be sure which to 

acknowledge. 

 

I was of three minds, 

Like a tree, 

In which there are three blackbirds. 

 

The fans click above my head, cooling air washing over my cheeks.  

Is this what it will be like in the city, air conditioners blasting Antarctic air

through the workplace of my dreams?  

Was this what it was like in the past, travelling through the air of carefree  

being, not worried about what it is or what it will become?  

Is this how it feels to be moving through time and space, pulled from both  

dimensions into the present, confronted with the prospects of living in these  

worlds?  

I wonder here, stuck in this dimension between past and future. 

Nostalgic. Exciting. 

 

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds. 

It was a small part of the pantomime. 

 

Often, as I contemplate the future, I wonder how my past has led me to this.  

My past. A dog-eared book. Looking outside of this bleak room, I wonder how

time has passed me by so quickly. How was I once there, and now here? 

A warm wind swirls leaves into dance. Rustling fills the air. A chorus from the

trees. 

 

The three of us, walking down the lane. Hot, hot, hot asphalt on my feet. I should’ve worn shoes.  

Mum gave us money for the corner shop, for ice creams and chips with  

chicken salt. My favourite. Walking with them, my older brother and sister, I 

felt older too. We roamed the streets, playing, running and jumping. We were

birds in the sky. Free. My sister, she rode her bicycle, pink spray-painted  

green, only one of the many tricks she got up to. Her hair tangled and ravaged  

with split ends, blowing in the sticky summer’s breeze. She idolised my 

brother, followed his every footstep, mimicked his every word. He rode a  

skateboard. The bottom covered with vegetable stickers, ones we had eagerly 

collected from Bunnings. He thought he was the coolest kid out there, rolling

fast and trying to get me to race him, to boost his inflated ego. A boisterous

pair. 

And me, I just watched. Just watched. Four years older than me. They were in

primary school, able to catch the bus and learn to write. I wanted to be as old

as them. Little did I know. 

We sat on the kerb, the sun blazing on our freckled cheeks, chewing the gum

off our bubble-o-bills before the ice cream slithered onto our hands. 

When I look from afar, we were kids with the world at our hot, hot, feet. 

 

At the sight of blackbirds 

Flying in green light 

Even the bawds of euphony 

Would cry out sharply. 

 

I feel stuck, tossed between these roaring waves, grasping for breath. I 

imagine the future. It is so close to me, yet just out of reach. But I can still play 
with the air, between my grasping fingers and the enticing future. 

 

City life, bustling streets, arguing cars. Towers climb into the ragged sky.       

I will watch from the train carriage. Rainbow hair will pass me, looking for a 

seat. Facial tattoos to my right. A busker at the end, carrying his tuba for a 

show in the pulsing city heart.  

I’ll be on my way to the law firm, my suit smart and tight. The world at my 

fingertips, not at my feet. 

My fellow commuters avoid each other’s glances. Awkward smiles, here and

there, others lingering in their own worlds, not wanting to let go for the day

ahead. Or maybe they need to let go. We will share a carriage, share the air, 

share this moment, this time of life. 

Off the train, onto the platform. The rush hour buzz creates an ambiguous 

breeze. Clicking of shoes on the tiled floor. A shadow of a man on the tiles,  

with a paper cup in his trembling hands.  

I’ll stop, empty some spare change into his sombre, life vessel. 

Shared smiles. Three teeth. 

Back on my way. Freedom in the city. Myself in the city. 

Cry out sharply. 

The world will be mine. 

 

I know noble accents 

And lucid, inescapable rhythms; 

But I know, too, 

That the blackbird is involved  

In what I know. 

 

The grumbling returns, voices, cars. I remember where I am, who I am, why I

am here. This moment. This moment, in between past and future, memories

and daydreams, this and that. I want to be immersed in the waves of

nostalgia. I want to be submerged in the breaths of excitement, the dreams

and wishes that seem so unequivocal.

The truth is both. So it has to be neither. 

 

The only place I can be is the blaring present. I can see life for what it is, now. 

How anti climatic.

 

I do not know which I prefer, this or that, that or this.

 

---

 

You can find more incredible stories that were submitted to our Byron Writers Festival Student Competitions on our blog. Read Susie Warrick Young Writers Award Category 2 runner up story, The Alley by Elise Nikkinen, here and read the Jesse Blackadder Prize runner up story, The Thief by Caleb Scherrer, here.

 

Thank you to the Warrick Family, Hilarie Dunn and the Byron Writers Festival Jesse Blackadder Memorial Fund, who generously sponsor our prizes and support this opportunity for young writers.