Fictional school in crisis nets award for former Swinton teacher

John Irving Clarke won the £1,000 first prize in the Magic Oxygen International Short Story Competition with Into the Driving Rain, a tale of drastic action taken by a teacher after an ideological split with the head of an academy.

John, who taught as assistant headteacher at Swinton Community School between 2004 and 2010, said: “Because of my background, people assume there is a strong autobiographical element in the story.

“Not so, not as far as Swinton is concerned anyway where I have the fondest memory of my time there with the students.

“Hopefully, they too remember my strong interest in literature and creative writing.”

John was one of almost a thousand entrants from all over the world in the competition which culminated in an awards ceremony in Lyme Regis, Dorset last Saturday and was praised by judges for a tale which “does a tremendous job of presenting a futuristic scenario through convincing characterisation”.

The budding author is now working towards completing a book of short stories and a collection of poetry.

His previous books are available on Amazon and the prize-winning story, Into the Driving Rain is available in the Magic Oxygen Literary Prize 2016 anthology published by Magic Oxygen.