KUCHING – Foundation (Business) student Mohamad Ashraf bin Abdillah won the 5th Swinburne Creative Writing Competition 2019 on 13 November.
His story entitled ‘Life and Death are Friends’ impressed the judges with the uncanny way in which the issue of depression was tackled. The voice of his protagonists evoked lingering emotions in the readers.
Honourable Mention Awards went to Catherine Grace Chin for ‘Just Another Day’, Farina Parveen for ‘Emergency’, and Francesca Gelang Chong for ‘Homework’.
Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive Officer Professor John Wilson and Manager of Information Resources Adeline Ho presented the awards to the winners and participants during the prize-giving ceremony.
This annual competition is co-organised by the School of Foundation Studies and Information Resources to encourage Swinburne students to hone their creative writing skills and to read and explore works of fiction, including their own university mates’ writing. This semester, there were a total of 16 entries.
The Swinburne Sarawak Creative Writing Community Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/SSCWriting/) and WhatsApp group were created for students to post and discuss their own stories, and to be updated with other writing events, articles or news. The group members meet every week on campus to write a short story based on a prompt and to discuss each other’s stories.