It’s been many months of duelling, to arrive at the best creative writers of our competition on the theme of ‘The Adverse Effects of COVID-19 on a Poor Nigerian Family.

Recall that we called for submissions on May 30, 2020, for our maiden edition of the Creative Writer’s Challenge powered by fadakay.org. Each entrant was to submit a short story of not more than 500 words, on the theme of the impact of COVID-19 on a poor Nigerian family.

We received 67 submissions in total. After our initial verification process, only 53 of those stories were turned over to the judges.

We went to the trouble of getting seasoned writers to judge this maiden edition of the Creative Writer’s Challenge.

We had Samson Iruesiri Kukogho; author, poet, publisher, and winner of the GTB Dusty Manuscript Challenge in 2018. We also had Michael Tolulope Emmanuel; author, poet, editor, and winner of the Quramo Writer’s Prize in 2018. Added to the list of judges was the distinguished Ufuoma Bakporhe; writer and aspiring lawyer. She recently emerged winner of the 2019 Awele Creative Trust Award.

Creative Writer’s Challenge 2020: Judges

We sincerely thank our judges for their professionalism and generosity to us during this painstaking process.

After independently judging and scoring the submissions, 20 writers were selected for the LONG LIST, and their names were INSCRIBED in our HALL OF FAME on the first day of July 2020.

Fast forward to the 15th of July 2020, we again presented our SHORTLIST of Ten amazing writers who made it to the next round of the competitions.

Today, being the last day of August 2020, we bring this competition to an end by presenting our five best writers:

In 5th place is PETER NWAOBI with his story I AM NOT A THIEF.

In fourth place is AKANNO RAYMOND with his story JUST FOR THE RICH?

In third place is DEXTER FAVOUR JOSEPH with his story LIFE IS HARD.

In second place is OLUWASEUN WENDE with her story CONSANGUINITY.

And our overall best writer category goes to SALOME OLORUNSOGO with her amazingly well written story IN THE AIR.

Creative Writer’s Challenge 2020: Winners

At a zoom meeting earlier today, (August 31st 2020), winners in all five categories were given their prices. The 4th and 5th place winners received a token of five thousand Naira each, courtesy of Gerca Stories, under the kind supervision of Fada Mic Erohubie.

The third place Winner walked away with N20,000.00 naira; the second place winner received N30,000.00 naira; while our overall winner took home the grand prize of N50,000.00, courtesy of FADA KAY’S WORLD.

We thank all those who took part in this process, especially our judges, who rendered their service to us gratis (without pay). This was one whole amazing experience for us all. And as one of our judges remarked, “this was an opportunity for us to feel firsthand, the pains that many families have had to go through this period.”

Remember that not being selected does not in any way mean you’re not a great writer. It only means your story did not have what we required at this time. Please keep writing. Don’t be discouraged.

To read our five best stories, simply CLICK on any of the titles above. Note that the stories weren’t edited. They’ve been published as they were submitted.

Do not forget to leave your candid review in the comment box far below the story page. Let us know what you love about the stories, and how best we can improve this competition.

Plans are underway to make available all 53 stories that made it to the competition in digital format on the Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing Platform soonest.

To God be all glory and praise!

Warm regards,
© Oselumhense Anetor, August 31, 2020.