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Authors wanted to celebrate Tartan Day
BUDDING authors are being urged to get involved with a short story competition as part of this year’s Tartan Day festival.
The Angus based competition is open to non-professional writers of all ages with categories for adults, secondary school pupils and primary school pupils.
All stories submitted must reflect the theme of the competition - ‘Tartan Treasures’ – and primary and secondary school pupils are provided with the opening paragraph, which focuses on an old tartan travelling rug ‘which had been thrown over my granny’s settee for as long as I could remember…’
Carnoustie author David Wishart, best known for his Marcus Corvinus series of Roman mysteries, is a member of the competition’s judging panel.
He said: “One of the most difficult aspects of writing is getting started or finding inspiration so it’s a great help to be provided with a theme for a story and, for younger writers, the opening paragraph.
“As one of the judges, I’ll be looking for short stories with a strong, concise plot, believable characters and lots of imagination.”
Three stories from each category will be chosen to go forward to the final round and will also be filmed being read by professional story tellers in the atmospheric surroundings of Glamis Castle.
The judges will then select the winning story from each category and the winning authors will each be presented with an Amazon Kindle on Friday, March 29, at the Tartan Treasures prize-giving at Angus Archives, by Forfar.
The prize-giving will be one of the first events in the Tartan Day Scotland Festival, which runs from March 29 until April 7.
In addition, the three winning short stories will be printed in the local Angus County Press newspapers and the films of the nine stories which reached the finals will feature on the Tartan Day Scotland facebook page and at www.tartandayscotland.com.
“One of the most rewarding aspects of writing is knowing people are reading or listening to the final results of your work so offering writers the chance to have their work published and available online is an excellent incentive to enter the Tartan Treasures competition,” added David.
“The Tartan Day Scotland Festival celebrates the best of Scotland and the Scots and, with our country’s illustrious literary traditions, this competition might just bring to light Scotland’s next great writer.”
The closing date for entries to the Tartan Treasures short story competition is March 7, World Book Day.
To find out more, including the full starter paragraph, and to download an entry form, visit www.tartandayscotland.com/treasures or pick up a Tartan Treasures competition leaflet at libraries, museums, leisure centres and ACCESS offices across Angus.
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Weather for Arbroath
Wednesday 19 June 2013
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 9 C to 19 C
Wind Speed: 21 mph
Wind direction: West
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 11 C to 18 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: South east
