"A short story has to do what a novel does, but in a shorter space." Gerard Woodward explained at the Short Story Prizewinners' lunch. "The best short stories make use of the constraints - the immediacy, the transparency. You haven't got space to give backstory so you rely on the preciseness of the language." The winners all did just that, and will be posted on the website soon; in the meantime we enjoyed Gerard's choice of top tale, 'The power of purple' by Joanne Fox from Solihull, over coffee at Orchardleigh Golf Club. Alison, who devised and organises this event, told us the contest had attracted over 500 entries from around the world. Her top tip: "The title is part of the whole thing."
Last night party at Christies with Annabelle a fantastic finale - great singers, great crowd, and just enough room for dancing.





And here endeth the Words@Frome Festival bulletins for this year. Final footnote: respect to Frome Community Radio for covering so many of the words events: poetry and fiction, live interviews and prerecordings, afterviews and promotions- and thanks to Tasha for slipping Saturday's venue change information into the closing seconds of her show. How they did it from a corner of the attic space above the Cheese & Grain is a mystery to me. Downloads here.

And now I'm off to Languedoc, where the sun is out and the temperature is in the top 20s....