The winners of the 2024 Banjo Paterson Writing Awards have been announced, with Shame the Stars by Kim Ulrick from the NSW South Coast winning the prestigious Short Story section.

Shame the Stars tells the beautiful story with light humour of how a couple, who have been together for 75 years, met.

There were more than 200 entries for the awards.

The winning entries were announced at the Orange Readers and Writers Festival at the Hotel Canobolas this morning, Saturday 3 August, and prizes presented by Orange Deputy Mayor Gerald Power.

Cr Power thanked everyone who entered the competition and congratulated the entrants for the high quality of submissions.

“The judges had a difficult task given the high quality of entries from around Australia in this year’s competition,” Cr Power said.

“This shows how the awards have grown in popularity in their 33-year history and pays tribute to the enduring legacy of Banjo Paterson’s works.”

The Contemporary Poetry Award was won by David Judge, from Bendigo, VIC for his poem Extracted or Polluted or Extinct.

The poem expresses lament about banks, population overflow, extinct animals, pollution, the state of the environment, culture preservation and a life of excess.

Mr Judge is also preparing to launch his first poetry anthology titled A Sense of Place – A Septuagenarian’s Recollection in Rhyme.

The ABC Radio Children’s Award was won by Sophie Wisdom, a Perth, WA resident, for the story All or Nothing, about devastating heartbreak in your teenage years.

Second prize was presented to Lucinda from Panuara, NSW for Artistic Imitations, an intriguing short story blending art and murder, and third prize was presented to Mikayla from Jerilderie, NSW for the thoughtful and emotive poem Anxiety.

The winning entries can be viewed on the Central West Libraries’ website www.cwl.nsw.gov.au

The judges for the 2024 awards were long-time judge Deborah Smith and local author John Willing.

The Banjo Paterson Writing awards were established in 1991 to honour Banjo Paterson, a great Australian writer and favourite son of Orange, with a competition to encourage short story or poetry writing with Australian content.

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