Jean Rovegno wins annual Short Story Competition 

by Joseph Garcia

Jean Rovegno won the top prize in this year’s Short Story Competition, with her entry ‘Mothers Hands’.

Ms Rovegno told the Chronicle the story is the embodiment of “her melancholic childhood memories of living together with her siblings and grandparents under one roof”.

Ms Rovegno attributed her interest in story writing to her dedicated reading and a Year 4 teacher, Mr Parody, who she said, “encouraged her ideas and motivated her”.

Ms Rovegno noted how grateful she was to be given an “opportunity to lose herself in writing this piece” and expressed her joy at having won.

She also paid tribute to the other entries for their “extremely high standard of writing this year”.

The Short Story Competition was organised by the Gibraltar Cultural Services (GCS) in conjunction with The Chronicle and the prizes were announced at BOOKgem on Wednesday.

Gibraltar Cultural Services CEO Seamus Byrne opened the award ceremony, which saw 310 entries from all age groups, ranging from Year 4 school children to adults.

The panel of judges consisted of Melissa Bosano and Jonathan Pizarro.

Ms Bosano said it was an honour to form part of a panel that oversaw the multitude of “varied and interesting stories”.

Ms Bosano added that despite it being “hard to encourage some children to write, there was still an encouraging amount of entries this year”.

Ms Rovegno took overall first place and was awarded £1000.

She was followed by the winner of the Best Adult Story in the English Language Mae Easter with ‘Kestrel’, the runner-up Tom Smith with ‘Castle Steps’ and Brenda Anna Dominicy took highly commended with ‘Choice, 2079’.

The Best Story in the Spanish Language was won by Brian Gordon with ‘Entrar Por Los Ojos’, Erin Costa took runner-up with ‘Unagi’ and highly commended was awarded to Serina Manasco who wrote ‘Cruzando Fronteras’.

In the Llanito Category Sophie Macdonald took first place with ‘Norfolk Square’, runner-up was David Bentata with ‘The Kitchen Chair’ followed by highly commended Naomi Duarte with ‘Kukos Emprestados’.

In the School Year 8-10 Category Bayta Levy won with ‘Wrapped In Time', the runner-up was Sara Bensalah with ‘The Coldest Day of the Year’ and Adelaia Corr Agnew took highly commended with ‘The Mediterranean’.

The winner of the School Year 6-7 Category was Isla Snape with ‘The Story of a Year’ who was followed by runner-up Krishaa Lakhiani with ‘The New Reality’ and the highly commended Nadia Magner with ‘Guilt’.

Lastly, in the Year 4-5 Category Maddison Dellipiani took first place with ‘Ben and the Magic Forest’ while Ari Leitner came runner-up with ‘The Amazing Miror’ and Emilia Watson was highly commended for ‘Adventures at Tredegar Park’.

Joseph Garcia is a student on work experience with the Chronicle.