I’ve just been judging the Asia New Zealand Foundation short story competition with Mark Broatch from The Listener. Each story needed to link Asia and New Zealand in some way, and include 3 required words or phrases. There were some very imaginative links between countries, and some clever use of the necessary phrases (although some certainly felt shoehorned in) but in the end we chose a story that felt complete in itself and had that sense of the writing being very well-honed. A reminder of how demanding the short story is!