The winners of the second annual Bristol Short Story Prize have been announced.

Five writers from Bristol battled with international competition to be included among the 20 shortlisted entrants whose stories appear in a new anthology.

The competition saw nearly 2,000 entries from aspiring writers all over the world, including New Zealand, South Korea, Argentina, the USA, South Africa, Canada, Japan, Brazil and Ghana, and judges said that this international flavour was present in the winning stories, which tackle very different themes.

The winning story by Australian author Elizabeth Jane is based partly on a true story she was told by her Swansea-born parents, about neighbours singing together on the beach as they saw their city being bombed.

Second-placed Mary Teague, from Surrey, had never entered a writing competition before but impressed the judges with her tale of an inter-racial affair in pre-apartheid South Africa.

Canadian Inna Gertsberg, another first-time entrant, came third, with a story that recounts a student's meeting with a transvestite Rabbi.

The judging panel were BBC Radio 4 executive producer Sara Davie; award-winning author and Bristol University lecturer Patricia Ferguson; Bristol-based novelist and publisher Mike Manson; Venue editor Joe Spurgeon; and author and bookseller Nik Kalinowski.

Chair of the judges Mike Manson said: "Judging the 1,700 entries and drawing up the final shortlist was a massive, and at times, heart-wrenching task. Many stories only just missed inclusion.

"The debate was animated and it has to be admitted that coming to a consensus was not always straightforward. But, as this volume will testify, we got there in the end."

Joe Spurgeon added: "A wonderfully diverse force of storytelling skill punctuated the 2009 crop of entrants, brave, funny, tender and moreish when picked off in bite-sized morsels; compulsive, dizzying and relentlessly affecting when gobbled down as a whole."

The Bristol Short Story Prize is a collaboration between Bristol Review of Books magazine and the Mall Bristol branch of Waterstone's, where the awards ceremony took place on Saturday.

First prize was £500 plus a £150 Waterstone's gift card; second place was £350 plus a £100 Waterstone's gift card; and third place was £200 plus a £100 Waterstone's gift card.