The Berry Best
It is hard to explain the gut-wrenching embarrassment aspiring writers feel when they hand their precious work over to somebody to read – it is a combination of fear and (self) loathing, to paraphrase Hunter S. Thompson. Sam Barry, the creative writing winner of the Bulmers Berry ‘Who’s Hiding In The Undergrowth?’ competition, knows this feeling all too well.
Anne Sexton, 07 Oct 2011
“I have tried entering competitions before, but I haven’t had the confidence to stick with them. This is the first one where I’ve left the entry in. There was a few I emailed and said, ‘Can I have my entry back? I don’t want it in the competition.’”
Luckily for her, she stuck it out this time. Sam, who hails from Cork, has always had ambitions to be a writer. After sending in her entry she decided that the best way to deal with the fear was not to think about it at all.
“I’d put it out of my mind, then I heard I was short-listed and I was so excited.”
Sam, who is currently studying media production and journalism, is also a mother to a little boy of three. That she entered the competition at all was a combination of chance and good luck.
“On one of my very few nights out, Bulmers approached me with a free Bulmers Berry and a leaflet. I wrote a version of the story about a year ago and then I started working on it again when I heard about the competition and would have put about a good month’s work into it.”
Despite all the calls on her time, Sam is determined to succeed.
“I don’t want to stay on social welfare forever – I really want to write so I want to get back out there.”
Competitions like ‘Who’s Hiding In The Undergrowth?’ are a godsend to aspiring writers, says Sam.
“It’s definitely very important for new writers. It is very daunting having to email an editor and get instant rejection whereas with a competition you’re thinking, ‘Okay, I may actually have a chance.’ There’s nothing to lose at all. That’s brilliant.”
Aspiring writers tend to be voracious readers, so HP was curious to know what kind of books she likes to curl up with when she gets the chance?
“I love Chuck Palahniuk, the author of Fight Club – I love all his books. I really love George Orwell and Aldous Huxley who wrote Brave New World. I really am into dystopian books.”
While Sam’s winning entry, ‘The First Goodbye’, which you can read online at hotpress.com, could not be called dystopian, her short story deals with the serious subject of domestic violence.
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