Generus Living Short Story Competition

 As a way to reduce the boredom of lockdown the Retirement Villages Association has been running a short story competition, sponsored by the Generus Living group. Prizes are bottles of Central Otago vineyard Nevis Bluff Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris. The judge is Joan McKenzie, well-known to many New Zealanders as the guru behind Whitcoulls’ “Joan’s Picks”.

 There were three broad topics – “All’s well that ends well” (by far the most popular, with 91 entries), “An Unexpected Turn” (55 entries), and “Trouble in the Village” (22 entries, perhaps reflecting the trouble-free nature of retirement villages!) There were three entries that weren’t specified.

 We are delighted with the fantastic response to the competition. We thought we might have got 40 or so stories, but instead received 172 entries from 80 villages and Judge Joan said it was very hard to choose even the top ten.

But that’s what we’ve done. The top ten stories can be found here, in alphabetical order of author.

We hope you enjoy them!

Robert Boyle

Lucy Clerk

Denis Edwards

Denis Edwards

Ruth Leggott

Rick Long

Joan Lussi

Peter Rankin

Goff Squire

Jill Worrall