I recently completed my adjudication of a large-scale youth writing project in the border region. (This project is a Peace 3 project funded by the EU's 'Peace and Reconciliation' initiative.) My work was to judge creative writing portfolios submitted from schools all over the North and border regions, all of which contained works of fiction, poetry, non-fiction and an open section which saw some very innovative ideas – such as short films, plays, mimes, dance pieces.
It was hard work devising the competition - and really hard work adjudicating it. But as always in these things - the reward is really in the discovery of young talent. The talent on show was startling – particularly in the non-fiction sections. Some of the essays were worthy of publication in the New Yorker - they were that strong. We are going to anthologise a lot of the writing, and I’m really looking forward to this.
It all came to a wonderful head yesterday when prizes were presented to the young writers at the Hillgrove Hotel in Monaghan. Of course I judged the work ‘blind’ - so it was great to put a face to the winning story, poem etc.
These students have all studied the absolutely brilliant Kevin and Sadie novel series by Belfast-born writer, Joan Linguard. Joan sent us her comments which were read out at the presentation. This series of novels, aimed at a teenage readership – and beyond – has never been out of print. Joan Linguard wrote her first in the series, The Twelfth of July, in 1970. These books help students to understand the nature of political conflict and the senselessness of sectarianism, and are popular all over the world.
It was a wonderful day and I met the hardworking and dedicated local councillors for this area, together with the funders and members of the local Chamber of Commerce. I’m looking forward to working with the groups again after Easter, when I give a ‘masterclass’ to the winning writers. The winning school gets to go to Glasgow to meet Therese Breslin, whose novel, Divided City (which looks at the Celtic/Ranger divisions in Glasgow) was also studied by the students for this project.
It was hard work devising the competition - and really hard work adjudicating it. But as always in these things - the reward is really in the discovery of young talent. The talent on show was startling – particularly in the non-fiction sections. Some of the essays were worthy of publication in the New Yorker - they were that strong. We are going to anthologise a lot of the writing, and I’m really looking forward to this.
It all came to a wonderful head yesterday when prizes were presented to the young writers at the Hillgrove Hotel in Monaghan. Of course I judged the work ‘blind’ - so it was great to put a face to the winning story, poem etc.
These students have all studied the absolutely brilliant Kevin and Sadie novel series by Belfast-born writer, Joan Linguard. Joan sent us her comments which were read out at the presentation. This series of novels, aimed at a teenage readership – and beyond – has never been out of print. Joan Linguard wrote her first in the series, The Twelfth of July, in 1970. These books help students to understand the nature of political conflict and the senselessness of sectarianism, and are popular all over the world.
It was a wonderful day and I met the hardworking and dedicated local councillors for this area, together with the funders and members of the local Chamber of Commerce. I’m looking forward to working with the groups again after Easter, when I give a ‘masterclass’ to the winning writers. The winning school gets to go to Glasgow to meet Therese Breslin, whose novel, Divided City (which looks at the Celtic/Ranger divisions in Glasgow) was also studied by the students for this project.
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