was i Beautiful? by Olivia Yun - LSBI runner up 2026 (Years 10-12)
Express Media is excited to publish the Years 10-12 runner up for the Little Stories, Big Ideas competition in the theme of ‘Shimmer’: ‘was i Beautiful?’ by Olivia Yun (NSW).
Little Stories, Big Ideas is a nation-wide flash fiction literary competition for Australian secondary school students. This round of the competition, we received an incredible calibre of flash writing entries from secondary school-aged writers across Australia. The winners and runners-up – chosen in collaboration with Prize Ambassador Amelia Mellor – impressed us deeply with their unique voices and perspectives. Working within a 100-word limit, these brilliant young writers created clever, moving and evocative windows into imaginative other worlds and rich inner lives.
Entries for Little Stories, Big Ideas Round 2 will open on August 3 2026.
was i Beautiful?
i was a cathedral beneath the sea.
my body woven from amber coral
and flickering sapphire fins.
sunlight spilled through the water
in trembling ribbons unraveling across my skin.
they came like pilgrims.
lowering lenses instead of prayers
calling me Paradise
for they could not distinguish radiance,
with ruin.
still, i shimmered for them.
even when the fish fled like fallen stars.
even as colour loosened from my ribs,
and
drifted
wordlessly
into
the
tide.
when my bones grew pale,
the sea made me luminous.
above me,
humans whispered
at how Beautiful i looked in white.
Olivia Yun is in Year 10.