A WRITER from Wotton-under-Edge has come up trumps in an international short story competition.

Chloe Turner’s work Breaking the Glass-Blower’s Heart won the local prize at this year’s Bath Short Story Award.

Praising her tale, literary agent Euan Thorneycroft, who judged the award, said: “This is a very confident story of a young Spanish au-pair finding herself working for a middle-class family in England. 

“The breaking of a vase ripples out so that we see the strained dynamics of this tense little pocketed family, with its suggestion of infidelity and lovelessness. This is a very well-written story, full of fantastic descriptive detail.”

Last week Chloe was presented with book vouchers at Mr B’s Emporium of Books in Bath, the sponsors of the prize. 

She has won, been longlisted or shortlisted in many competitions and her stories have been published in a range of online and print journals. 

Last year she read at the Stroud Short Stories event and in November an extract from her story will be read at the launch of the 2017 Bath Short Story Award anthology in which her story will appear. 

“I’ve admired the stories in Bath Short Story Award anthologies for years and I couldn’t be prouder to have one of my own in the upcoming 2017 collection, especially as the Local Prize winner,” she said. “Thanks to judge Euan Thorneycroft and the award team for choosing it.’

The Bath Short Story Award is an international writing competition attracting more than 1,000 entries each year. 

In 2017, there were 1,100 entries from 45 countries which were whittled down to a shortlist of 18, from which Chloe’s story was chosen as the best written by a Somerset, Gloucestershire or Wiltshire writer.