Simon Thomas, of North Kessock Primary School, won the primary section of the biennial competition with his poem "Slavery", in keeping with this year's competition theme of "Living Together". Also receiving a commendation in the secondary schools category was Kirsten Brown, of Charleston Academy, with her short story "Head of the House".

Balloch Primary's Ainsley MacDonald was also commended in the same category for her essay, "Living with One Another".

The winners of the 10th Neil Gunn Writing Competition, which is divided into sections for adult poetry, adult prose and secondary and primary school pupils, received their prizes at Inverness Town House last week from Highland Council's chairman of education, culture and sport committee, Councillor Bill Fernie.

Youth categories were open to Highland primary five to seven pupils and year four to six secondary pupils, while the adult prose and poetry categories were thrown open to people across the world with entries from Finland, France, Brazil, America, Canada, Wales, England and Scotland.

All scripts were submitted anonymously to the judging panel, which was chaired by award-winning Scottish author James Robertson and included poet Jon Miller and Colin Ferguson, Alison Wilkie and Ann Yule from the Neil Gunn Trust.

First prize in the secondary section went to Beth O'Connell of Thurso High School. Second prize went to Neil Henderson from Thurso High School and the third prize went to Isabella Claydon from Gairloch High School.

The Neil Gunn Trust, which organises the competition in association with Highland Council, decided to give a special award of book tokens to Thurso High School for its excellent performance. In addition to Beth and Neil winning two of the prizes, an entry written by Alison Castle was highly commended by the judging panel and entries by Fiona Cowan and Charlotte Gordon were commended.

Winner of the adult poetry section was James Knox Whitter from Norfolk who also won the overall winner's prize of a week on a writing course, sponsored by Hi-Arts. The runner-up was Jim Bradbury from Eastbourne, with Donald Murray from Shetland taking third prize.

Pictured at the presentation ceremony are (back, left to right) Councillor Bill Fernie, chairman of Highland Council's education, culture and sport committee, Christine Passmore of sponsors Royal Bank of Scotland and Ann Yule, convener of the Neil Gunn Trust. (Front) are primary schools winner Simon Thomas from North Kessock Primary School (centre) with runners-up Robbie Fairweather Graham from Applecross School and Ruby Partridge from Broadford School.

The adult prose section was won by Jacqueline Liuba from Applecross. Second prize winner, Daniela Norris from France, travelled to the ceremony to collect her award but unfortunately the third prize winner, Fiona Thackerary from Brazil, was unable to attend.

"This year the adult entries from across the world gave a new welcome dimension to the event and we were delighted that many of the prize winners were able to travel to the Highlands to attend the presentation," Councillor Fernie said.

"The judges had a very hard task to distinguish between good and very good writing and I know, due to the high quality of entries, they worked hard to make their final selection.

"Although the style and subject matters of the winning entries all varied considerably, what they did share was a uniqueness, awareness and the ambition to get to grip with big international issues. My congratulations go to all the winners and I hope they feel encouraged to continue to enjoy writing."

Ann Yule, convener of the Neil Gunn Trust, also praised the entrants.

"Neil Gunn had two strands which run throughout his work — the importance of individuals and the importance of community. He also wrote about big issues in his day so we were pleased that many of this year's entries covered world topics including climate change, race relations and religious divides," she said.

c.macleod@inverness-courier.co.uk

Printer friendly version

Email this article to a friend

Bookmark this

---