Tracy Fells
Photograph by Luca Furio, Commonwealth Writers.
One of my first significant wins with a short story was the monthly themed competition in Writing Magazine. That was in 2011, a year after I’d left my career in clinical research to start writing seriously. Winning £200 and seeing my story We Need To Talk About Katie published was the first major milestone of my writing career. Six years later I’m still writing, but could I have predicted how it would take me? I’ve recently returned from an all-expenses paid trip to Singapore where I spent a wonderful week with the writers you can see in the photograph. From left to right: Ingrid Persaud (Trinidad and Tobago), me (UK), Nat Newman (Australia), Jacob Ross (Judge, Grenada), Anushka Jasraj (India) and Akwaeke Emezi (Nigeria) – together we represented all regions of the Commonwealth. As regional winners in the 2017 Commonwealth Short Story Prize (#CWPrize, run by the Commonwealth Writers and Commonwealth Foundation) we were in Singapore for the prize giving and the announcement of the overall winner. My own writing had taken me over 6,000 miles to the other side of the world and to the rooftop of a hotel in Singapore. How did I get there?