Top 24 submissions in the 2022 Festival writing competition announced - who would be in your shortlist?

By Andrew Stuck

We are delighted to publish the top 24 submissions to the 2022 Urban Tree Festival writing competition.

Challenged to write about “Healing Trees” in 250 words or under we received more than 100 amazing entries of poems and stories.

The theme of “Healing Trees” was set by our previous winners: Chris Cuninghame for poetry and Sarah Wheeler for prose. Those chose the theme as they felt it was pertinent to these challenging times and wanted entrants to reveal “the power of trees to heal themselves and us, to contribute to well-being and to sustain eco-systems.”

They also volunteered to be judges in this year‘s competition joined by Anita Roy (poetry) and NG Bristow (prose); together they tackled the task of reading all 100+ submissions and scoring them and selecting the Top 24.

Sarah commented on how tough a task it was “There were so many good pieces there, it really was hard to choose (my longlist of stories was 19!)”.

So now it’s your turn, who would be in your shortlist of 12? You will find out who the judges chose on May 7 as their shortlist of 12 - these pieces will be published in CANOPY a limited edition chapbook illustrated by Alban Low, that will go on sale during the Festival, and the revenue from sales will go to supporting future Urban Tree Festival writing competitions.

You also be able to meet the authors of the shortlisted pieces in our online WRITE ABOUT TREES showcase event on the final day of the Urban Tree festival - 5pm Sunday 22 May book your place here