8th Annual Salt Festival Writing Prize: Celebrate the Salt
Children's Division Winner

 

The Sad Time Before, 19 August, 2045, by Grace Visechk, age 10

 

When my mum was little, they didn't have The Salt Festival. That made me sad for her because The Salt Festival is the BEST time of the year in Dumbleyung! And not just because of the salt taffy!

The Salt Festival started in 2037 and its motto is Celebrate the Salt! The Salt Festival started because farmers couldn't have sheep inland because it was too hot and they needed money so they started The Salt Festival. Dumbleyung has the largest inland lake in WA and we are lucky because it makes so much salt and there is so many useful things you can do with salt!

I don't go in the Saltman competition because I have eczema and the salt stings me. Mum says I can wear her gardening gloves but then I get all sweaty because at The Salt Festival it is HOT. Grandpa says when he was little they used to go swimming in the lake but I don't know how they would swim in all that salt, and the mud beneath is black like when Nan's sewerage tank overflowed last summer.

I'm glad I live now because I can go to The Salt Festival where they have salted pork and salt taffy, and salt crust potatoes cooked in the sun that you can crack open like an egg. Mrs McKinnon that runs the salt potato stand even arranges them in some sticks like a nest. She says there was birds here before, lots and hundreds but I think she's fibbing.

In conclusion I'm glad I don't live in the sad before time when it was cold and there were animals everywhere because then we wouldn't have The FABULOUS Salt Festival!

 

 

Excerpt from ‘Winning Entry' by Tiffany Hastie in Follow the Salt (2025, Night Parrot Press) https://www.nightparrotpress.com/follow-the-salt/

 

Author Bio:
Tiffany Hastie is a doctoral candidate at Edith Cowan University researching the benefits of immersive nature writing for fauna fiction. Recipient of the Roderick Centre Online Fellowship and two-time winner of the Talus Prize. Tiffany's work has appeared in Westerly, Verge, the little journal, and anthologies Pigface, Ourselves, and Follow the Salt.