Well, sort of. I entered a short story competition for The University of Nottingham alumni magazine, Connect, all the way back in February and genuinely thought I didn’t have a chance of getting shortlisted (because I almost never do for these things). Shock of all shocks, I did! My story was picked as one of the top 6!

All entries were initially judged blind by a panel of 8 Creative writing and English students and graduates, and assigned scores for: creativity and premise, characterisation...