Congratulations to our Year 13 student Sydney Brandolino. Sydney entered the Mindfood short story competition and her story was selected to be published in the March 2023 issue (on sale now).

Called ‘Painting Corn Snakes’ Sydney says, “My inspiration was mostly 20th century short horror (mostly psychological) stories, in particular, Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery. Short stories are, to me, such an incredible medium, especially since they force everything to be very condensed whilst still providing the same impact as a novel. I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of unreliable narrators as well, and took some inspiration from films such as American Psycho, Fight Club, and Black Swan in order to portray a (spoilers!) disturbed narrator with a warped sense of reality. Although I adore writing horror stories, short or otherwise, I pinky-promise it’s all entirely fiction, and that I have no murder-y tendencies.”

You can find a copy of the magazine in the library if you would like to read Sydney’s story.