I have added two of my award winning stories here.
‘Still Life’ was the first story I entered into a competition, Write Hear, Write Now, and by great chance, it won. It was broadcast on BBC Southern radio in 2006, read aloud by a professional. As part of the prize I received a recording of the performance plus a one to one session with Carole Hayman, one of the writers of ‘Ladies of Letters’, which was an amazing experience for a new writer.
The story itself borrows a lot from my experiences when my father was ill, and later died in a hospital in Rouen, though it is not biographical in the strictest sense as much fictional material was added.
The second story, ‘Blue’ won the Elmbridge Literary Festival short story competition and is a complete work of fiction, though I owe the whole idea of the main character to a chance sighting of a similar woman with her tiny dog in a car park for a Surrey garden that is open to the public.
I find that the people I see as I go about my every day life often populate my stories. If you pass a woman rapidly scribbling on the back of a till receipt in the supermarket, it may be me noting down my latest inspiration!
Sally J Blackmore's Blog 
Love the twist!
Sally, I loved your short story and can’t wait to read the next one!
Brilliant – such a dark ending!
Thank you for reading this Jill, Claire and Sandra. It is quite an old one, but a favourite.
So glad you enjoyed it.
Thanks for posting Still Life, so very moving. And I loved the brilliant description of entering the hospital – ‘I hit a wall of tired, heavy air’ – ‘the doors hiss and suck themselves closed behind me’.
Thank you for reading it Sandra. it is a long time since I read it myself, and although not autobigraphical, as I said, it did bring back some memories. That is probably why I have kept it hidden until now.