FORMER Dorset reporter Joanna Quinn has won the Dorset award of the Bridport Prize for the second year running.
Her short story was called All Of These Things Are True And Not True.
Joanna, 33, was born in London, but grew up in Weymouth, where she started her career as a journalist on the Dorset Echo.
She now works in PR in Bournemouth.
She has been writing since she was a child and her motivation was simply that she liked reading, she says.
Her first prize came as a 15-year-old in the WH Smith Young Writers’ Competition.
She said: “Journalism is a useful tool for writers because you get used to getting your work slashed to pieces and don’t become precious.”
Last year her winning story – not only the highest Dorset entry but second overall – was The Pocket Guide To Infidelity For Girls.
She is currently studying for an Mphil in Creative Writing at the University of Glamorgan. She has also had a short story published in a Leaf Books anthology of the winners of their Open Short Story Competition 2006 and is now working on her first novel.
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