Young Writer of the Year

S5 pupil Amy has won the prestigious Scottish Young Writer of the Year competition with her article inspired by The Guardian’s ‘My mother before I knew her’ compilation.

The competition was organised by the Scottish Review and attracted entries from pupils across Scotland aged between 15 and 18 years old.

Eleven papers were short-listed and sent out to a panel of 19 judges, who were not told the names of the authors, their ages or the schools they attend.

The judges were impressed with Amy’s article which reflected on a photograph of her mother taken before she was born. Amy will receive a cheque for £600.

Congratulations also to Sowmi, S5, who was highly commended for her piece of writing.

One of the judges, journalist and broadcaster Keith Aitken, said: “All of these writers can be justly proud of their work. Pace is a difficult quality to achieve, and more particularly to sustain, in prose. For all the diversity of subjects and of styles, these pieces almost all built and held a pace that kept the reader aboard. I was particularly struck by the richness of the vocabulary at these writers’ command. Well done to all our writers.”