Winners of the 2026 Louis MacNeice Creative Writing Prize Announced

The Louis MacNeice Prize for Creative Writing was established in memory of Louis MacNeice, an Irish a poet, playwright, and BBC producer who studied at Merton during the 1920s. The competition invites all current students of the College to enter a maximum of one poem and/or one short story on any topic. 

We are delighted to announce that the short story prize was awarded to 2^nd year English student Niamh Durnin for ‘Whitewash’, while History DPhil Ruka Hussain won first place in the poetry category with ‘An Archive Of Your Own’. 

Proxime for short story was ‘Flight’ by Christopher Chang, who is reading for a Master’s in French and Russian. After winning in the poetry category last year, Davis Murphy was the poetry proxime for 2026 with ‘Plucked’. 

This year the entries were judged by Professor Sunetra Gupta, Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology at the Department of Biology and a Supernumerary Fellow at Merton College. Professor Gupta shared her thoughts on her experience being a judge:  

“It was a pleasure to judge the Louis MacNeice Creative Writing Prize this year  and many of the entries were of a very high standard.  The winning entries portray complex states of mind in a manner that is delicate and yet also bold and inventive.” 

Short story 

 

Niamh Durnin, short story winner: 

'Whitewash had been floating around in my drafts since last summer, emerging from the Oxford-specific experience of the telescopic long vacation. What I enjoyed most about writing this story was developing cohesive imagery that contributed to its oppressive atmosphere.  

I am grateful to the judges for the time they took to consider my story and in the competition more broadly. The Louis MacNeice prize is a fantastic creative motivator and a valuable institution at Merton. It is an honour to be recognised amongst what I know to be a very talented community of writers.'

Read 'Whitewash'

 

 

Christopher Chang, short story proxime: 

'I wrote this story primarily as an attempt to experiment with tone. I wanted to see how lightness might open up interpretative possibility. As for the setting, I had a persistent image of a wooden house in Ontario in the early 20th century surrounded by lots of wet grass. So I was probably thinking subconsciously about Munro (her version of Ontario dominates my own memories). I am growing increasingly fond of the consciousness of animals and non-materialist worldviews, so maybe this was reflected in the story as well. 

It is a real honour to receive the Proxime for it! Thank you very much to Professor Sunetra Gupta and Merton for the opportunity. I love this college and have learned so much from the wonderful people here.'

Read 'Flight'

 

Poetry 

Ruka Hussain, poetry winner: 

'Having set only one goal for 2026, which was to write more and share more, I am really grateful to have won the Louis Macneice Prize in poetry. Most of my recent work began as a way to process difficult experiences, and this poem in particular is about the strangeness of aging and feeling memory and history loop in uncanny ways. As a historian, I think about archives a lot, but increasingly I am convinced that there is probably nothing as profound as our individual archives, the ones that embroider our identities. Some of it we share, or it leaks out, and some remains stubbornly personal. My poem is an attempt to honour my mother and grandmother, what I share with them through memory, and what I can only imagine about them.' 

 

 

Davis Murphy, poetry proxime

Read 'Plucked'