To our worldwide authors and entrants, it is with great pleasure that the Wilson’s Tales Project can announce the winners of the 2025 competition.

The winning entries:
The Kettle, by Paul Jackson.
Second placed: Imperfect Past Tense, by Sean May.
Third placed: Ready, by Paul Mein.

For the ’school age’ category the winning entry:
Screen Time by Rosa Fu, from Hong Kong.
Second placed: Blood Type, by Iona, from Swinton Primary School, Berwickshire.
Third placed: Kayaking, by Noah, from Swinton Primary School, Berwickshire.

Once again, the judges found it difficult to differentiate between the many excellent entries, with the top few being separated by single points.

Of the winning entry, the judges commented: “This well crafted Tale draws in the reader within a domestic scene and the comforting reality of a cup of tea before raising the spectre of generational domestic violence which leads innocently into a chillingly macabre image left in the mind of the reader. Like all of the best tales we have read, its simplicity belies the depth of story revealed, and seems to grow in the mind of the reader well past the limit of exactly 100 words.”

Second place went to Sean May with ‘Imperfect Past Tense’ which again ends with a slightly disturbing revelation in the final sentence. Third placed is a Northumberland author Paul Mein, with his story ‘Ready’ which drew on the author’s knowledge of witchcraft stories to move from cats and gardening to leave the reader fearful of a knock at the door.

As we belatedly say goodbye to the 2025 competition, we also look forward to running it again in 2026. Full details will be made available with plenty of time to assemble your choice of exactly 100 words.

Special recognition for Swinton Primary School students.
The judges were so taken with the number of entries from Swinton Primary School, in the Scottish borders, they decided to give the school a special certificate of recognition.
And not only did the 2nd place and 3rd place awards go to two of their students, but a further six were also long listed.

Protect Director Andrew Ayre went along just before Christmas to meet the youngsters and their teachers.

He said: “I did a little chat about Wilson’s life, the tales before and after his death, the project and the competition. I gave the school its certificate of special recognition first, then said we had more news and that several of the students had been shortlisted, and they would all be receiving certificates. Then I told them there was more news, that two of them had also won 2nd and 3rd prize. Everyone was absolutely delighted and thrilled and very proud of what they had achieved.”
Andrew presented the two main prize winners a copy of Volume 8 of the Tales and their cash prize.

Rosa a worthy winner, all the way from Hong Kong.

Huge congratulations to Rosa Fu of Hong Kong who, at the age of 9, was our overall winner in the young person’s category.

Rosa’s EFL teacher Steve Sinclair said: “I offered the opportunity to enter to a couple of the more advanced students and both were short listed, which made us very happy. “The 100 word process challenges students to think about words differently, to appreciate how punctuation changes prose and how to condense a story. Rosa is great, she took to the task with such enthusiasm and the lessons were filled with invention and laughter.”

The judges had great difficulty with this category. Young authors from as far away as China, Hong Kong, Egypt and Nigeria sent Tales and there were entries from across the UK. Arriving at a decision not only on story quality, but taking into account the age of the author was far, far harder than judging the adult section – and the quality of the top ranked Tales has again notched up a little since last year.

And so the Wilson’s Tales Project team completely agrees with Steve, this was an amazing achievement. Well done Rosa!

For 2025, the Winner and runners up were due to be announced at the formal opening and dedication of the J.M. Wilson studio, a delightful new performance space created in the Straw Yard of the Berwick Garrison complex. This studio space dedicated in Berwick (Wilson’s hometown) seemed to be a most appropriate place to celebrate more Tales and the creativity brought together from across the globe in his name.

Unforeseen delays plagued this endeavour, so we withheld the names of the adult winners until the rescheduled event could be staged. However, the Board thought it unfair to delay any further, so winners and runners up have been informed by email.

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The full compendium of the 2025 entries can be read by clicking this link for the PDF compiled from the entries. Judging is done from the standard format of the entries, showing no names, or the author details that are bound into the second part of the book. This year, author identities have been added to the appropriate individual entries too.

2025 entries came from…
India, Hong Kong, Britain, Canada, Egypt, USA, China, South Africa and Australia.

The quality of the Tales gets ever better. It has become apparent that a very BIG story can be fitted into the 100 word limit. It just needs to fire the reader’s imagination.