Congratulations to Ava Reid, the winner of this year’s Landfall Young Writers Essay Competition

By Landfall Journal | Posted: Friday May 23, 2025

Her winning essay, ‘Two and a Half Mealworms’, is a collection of reflections and observations. From abandoned cat-shaped bottles of ‘Katy Perry Meow!’ eau de parfum to nameless diaries, lost receipts and old stained flat couches, Reid’s essay is an ode to life’s forgotten or discarded objects and the stories they tell about us.

‘My essay explores the material traces left behind as we move through the world, and the tension at the boundary of public and private looking practices. I found that time can warp what is deemed “acceptable” to look at.’

‘The list was intense and often funny, but it started feeling weird, and I wanted to understand why. I started unintentionally, noticing objects left around me at work, and this soon expanded into other areas of my life. I spend a lot of time walking to and from class, past people’s flats and their rubbish on the street.’

Reid hopes that people will come away from this essay with greater awareness of the norms of looking and internal storytelling.

Judge and Landfall editor Lynley Edmeades commends Reid for her ability to envision what lost or disregarded objects say about our culture, and what stories these artefacts might tell those who discover them hundreds of years from now.

‘The objects we fill our lives with speak of our own futility, and the act of imagining a world without us to explain their role offers a glimpse of the very futility in which we live.’

Read Ava’s full essay in the new issue of Landfall!
Landfall 249 is out now!

Find out more about Ava's winning essay here: Ava Reid wins the 2025 Landfall Young Writers' Essay Competition | University of Otago