The Cross Pens/Writing.ie Make Your Mark short story competition has been won by Madeleine Grace for her story, The Girl Who Could Catch the Rain. The winning entry was chosen by a panel of bestselling authors: John Boyne, Sinead Moriarty and Alex Barclay.
“It’s always exciting to read the work of new writers who are going to knock the rest of us off our perches,” said Boyne. “Madeleine Grace’s story builds to an emotional climax and was a deserving winner of the competition. I look forward to reading more of her work and that of the other writers in the years ahead.”
“Short stories are probably the most difficult genre to write,” said Sinead Moriarty. “How do you convey so much with so little space? So when you read a beautifully crafted one, you know how much work went into it. I was so impressed and indeed humbled by the short stories in this competition. The winner, Madeleine Grace’s story, stood out. She moved you, she engaged you, she swept you along and I defy anyone not to shed a tear at the last line.”
Dubliner Grace holds an MA in women’s studies from UCD. She is a teacher in Dublin where she lives with her husband David, daughter Amy and son-in-law Carl. She has self-published a novel, The Lighthouse, A Fairy Tale for the Broken Hearted, and will be publishing her first collection of poetry, Shafts, Shards, next month. She is currently working on Herstory, the fictionalised story of Eliza Wollstonecraft Bishop’s life 1763-1828. Grace says that although she is passionate about women’s history her writing touches on other topics such as spiritualism. As a reader she loves Margaret Atwood, Marilynne Robinson, Sebastian Barry and poet Paula Meehan.
In the free to enter competition, writers were asked to submit stories of up to only 1000 words on a theme of Make Your Mark. As well as great writing, the judges were looking for originality and that all-important voice, for a story that took them somewhere else for a few minutes and that resonated after they had finished reading. Grace wins a Cross Pen and lunch with literary agent Simon Trewin and Writing.ie’s founder Vanessa Fox O’Loughlin.
Fox O’Loughlin said: “I was delighted with the response to the competition. It’s fabulous to see that the short story tradition is so alive and flourishing and that there is such huge writing talent out there.”
Here is her winning story, “which shows just what you can do in 992 words”, said Fox O’Loughlin.
The Girl Who Could Catch the Rain
If Martha Stone had a euro for every time she heard the name Katie she’d be retired very comfortably thank you very much. As it is she’s quite comfortable. She owns her home, has a nice pension now and some savings in her bank account.
She retired quietly from Saint Mary’s National School for Girls after thirty-seven years of service. Yes she certainly served. A horrible job it is – teaching. Teaching girls, appeasing to the doting fathers and over-protective mothers, greeting the staff, pretending to like them for thirty-seven years, oh yes, she deserves that pension. She never applied to take the principal role when it became available a couple of times over the years and no one ever suggested she do so. They could have it that way if they liked, she never cared. She didn’t care when they said goodbye that Friday without so much as a cake or a good luck card. Thirty-seven years of service and Martha Stone walked away with a small cardboard box with bits and pieces she had accumulated over the past years. A stapler, staples, red correction markers (some wasted), a comb, face powder and a spare pair of reading-glasses in a purple box.
Now she should enjoy the peace and quiet but of course she can’t. There is no peace and quiet for Martha Stone. That would be just too much to ask for. The four children sound like a gang of ten sometimes. It’s all ‘give me this’ and ‘she did that’ and the mother, who shouts and swears like a fish-wife (not that Martha Stone knows any fish-wives of course but you get the gist) at the brats to ‘cut it out’ and ‘give it over’. There have been nights when the woman’s screams for the ‘da’ to stop beating her and roaring that he’s just like his aul’ fella that the retired teacher has had to call the gardaí. Of course it has been in vain as the fish-wife always denies any form of violence taking place in her home.
One would think that an hour sitting in the sun with a book on a summer’s afternoon would be pleasant and not too much to ask for at this stage of her life but no. Katie do this and Katie do that and get the washing in Katie, feed him Katie, change him Katie as if Katie were the mother. She sends the child across the dangerous road to the shop sometimes to get messages. Why do some people call shopping messages? She saw the Katie child one day returning from the shop as it had started to rain. The child had her tongue out which almost offended Martha Stone until she realised that the child was catching the rain. The woman was transported to her own childhood days of catching rain and running errands for her mother. Her beloved father had died suddenly and being the eldest of six Martha was made second mother in the home. Martha this and Martha that. She got blamed for everything but she didn’t want to think about that anymore thank you very much. Yes it seems that although much has changed for children these days many things stay the same. The pleasure of the cold rain on the tongue. Who tells a child to do such a marvellous thing?
Now these brats have gone just about too far. Large chrome-coloured bubbles are gliding over the wall that separates the family from Martha Stone (thank goodness) and the pesky bubbles are orbiting her head and her garden like little planets. One popped on the back of her hand. Martha Stone is not happy. She does not like to be touched. A ball is bouncing and its light thuds sound oh too close and she isn’t surprised to see the red ball rolling cheekily along the short pavement beside her roses. There’s crying… and then there is more crying and accusations. Katie made him do it, it seems. Katie should get the effing ball back then. It’s Katie’s fault. Katie, Katie, Katie…
She has just about had enough. Martha Stone leaves her chair and storms into her kitchen, shutting the door rather loudly to show them she’s annoyed. But now she’s frustrated because the slamming door is of course lost on the noisy neighbours from hell. She must have a word with their landlord. It’s just not good enough! She has read the same sentence at least four times and she was really looking forward to reading that book. She must calm down or she will give herself a headache. She pours a glass of water and sits in the kitchen considering closing the window but why should she? On a day like this! Absolutely not!
There is almost a silence but for the quiet crying of a child. It’s not the typical whinging she hears. This crying is sad, real, familiar… Martha Stone quietly opens her door and steps up on an upside-down plant pot. Katie is sitting at the open door crying. Her mumbles are just about audible to the retired teacher. She’s blamed on everything, nothing is fair, she has to do everything, they’re not even her kids so why should she and on and on went the childish private conversation. A thud in the chest of Martha Stone made the woman consider seeing her doctor for a check-up. She takes the red ball and goes back inside.
Martha Stone made a mark on the ball with a black marker. She wrote three words. She tipped the ball over the wall into the grass so its annoying bounce wouldn’t be heard. Maybe the child needed to know something about herself. Maybe Martha Stone was just the woman to tell her.
It was only in the moonlight before she turned off her bedroom light that she could see the words she wrote in black.
Katie is beautiful
