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Activity Page: THE CREATIVE POWER OF BOOKS

Welcome to our activity page inspired by THE CREATIVE POWER OF BOOKS in the UoA Collections. There are fun activities to do from home and we hope you will be able to visit us again soon.

Flash Fiction Competition - Prize Winners Announced!

We launched our Flash Fiction Competition in November 2020, as part of Book Week Scotland and we are delighted to announce the winners on World Book Day, 2021.

We thoroughly enjoyed reading all the stories that were entered. Although we can't give everyone a prize we ARE delighted to be able to feature a selection of the stories on our Creative Power of Books page. Thank you for your creative ideas. We hope the authors will continue to create more stories and that by reading them you may decided to have a go yourself.

Look out for a NEW competition announcement in the summer!

ADULTS COMPETITION (18+)

First Place - Rory A Barclay

Concerning Your Future

While predetermination might suggest this attempt at forewarning is a moot point, I feel it crucial to attempt, nevertheless.
I’m afraid with the decades of weathering and hindsight I may be so far removed from the embittered young man I was; positive changes that ironically perhaps have thrown me far from the shoes I once wore - such that you might not give this credence.
However it is vitally imperative that having survived the year 2020, in the interest of self-preservation and progress – when it’s perceptively palpable and obvious, you absolutely must not [WORD LIMIT REACHED]

 

Runner Up - Matilda Cederblad Clean Shirt

Runner Up - Bill Cox Monsters

YOUNG ADULTS COMPETITION (12-17yrs)

First Place - Henry Jaspars

Remind Me

Hey C,

Ok, you’ve won the bet - if you can remember, that is. But I gotta admit, I really didn’t see this one coming, so sending over the money might be a bit… y’know, difficult at the moment, at least while I get to grips with it. We were pissed when we agreed, remember? Even I was certain you’d be out of pocket pretty soon. Look at us now, eh? The irony is, even with all these marvellous alterations, I honestly don’t know what reminded me about it.

Anyway, Computer - could you switch me off for the night?

 

Runner Up - Erin Toner Paranoia

Runner Up - Bernadette Trimmings Elixir

CHILDREN'S COMPETITION (8-11yrs)

First Place - Daniel O’Flynn

A friend for everyone

One beautiful morning in 3020 a professor sat lonely and sad. He had no friends because everybody thought he was mad! But that day he had a life-changing idea. A metal, mechanical masterpiece, his very own squirrel friend. Although it is a robot, it acts just like a real squirrel. Soon this little animal was so smart that it could clone itself. Eventually there were millions of squirrels. So many that everyone in the world had a friend and no one was sad.

 

Runner Up - Lexi Nicholls The Future

Runner Up - Alfie McLean The Lost Boy

Read more of our Flash Fiction Competition entries

Open the PDFs below to read the stories created by all the Award Winners in each category as well as a selection of other entries.

How to Write Flash Fiction

In 2020 we are delighted to receive funding from the Scottish Book Trust to commission writer Alex McCall to create a brand new piece of Flash Fiction to celebrate Book Week Scotland at the University of Aberdeen. As part of the project Alex also worked with us to create an animated version of himself for a five part series of micro tutorials on "How to Write Flash Fiction". You can read more about how this project came about in the blog Animating Alex.

Here's Alex in animated form...

 

And here's the piece of Flash Fiction Alex created.

Book Folk

Meet Jane Pirie as we Corner another Curator; and Alan Warner, the University of Aberdeen's newly appointed Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing,

Collecting your Thoughts

Journals in the UoA Collections

Make & Play

UoA Collections