Elgin Writers' Group announces trophy and competition winners for 2021
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ELGIN Writers' Group has announced its competition and trophy winners for the year 2021.
Three trophies were presented by the group, with the winners of four writing competitions announced.
The President's Trophy was presented to Ian Williamson, with the Founder's Trophy going to Lizzy Greye and the Cathie Ashenden Trophy for Fantasy Fiction going to Dawn Tripp.
Mrs Tripp, who's in her third year of a creative writing degree at Moray College UHI, said: "I'm delighted to have won the Cathie Ashenden Trophy against some strong competition.
"The competition was inspired by a talk in May to Elgin Writers from Ben Galley, a successful Moray-born fantasy fiction writer who now lives in the USA.
"Despite Ben’s wonderful tips and hints, I sat for a long time staring at a blank screen as fantasy is not my genre.
"However, we then went into another round of Covid restrictions, and I thought how different life in 2021 was to the one I had imagined as a child; I assumed we’d all be travelling the world faster with flying cars and instead we weren’t leaving our front doors.
"I then thought of how life might be in another 20 years and that’s my story. It's a dystopian fantasy fiction on life in 2040 where we have been ‘locked down’ for 20 years.
"Shops as we know it don’t exist, government broadcasts are on every channel, meal deliveries are compulsory and worst of all you need to exercise to power your own home.
"However, my character Esme has won a two-hour outdoor pass and makes an intriguing, but possibly dangerous, discovery."
Ian Williamson, who was one of the club's founders in 1988, was named as winner of the President's Trophy.
He said: "I won the President's Cup for amassing most points over all this year's club competitions.
"I'm a founder member, past president and secretary but only rejoined the club three years ago after an absence of 20 years or so."
Liz Greye, winner of the Founder's Trophy, added: "Winning the Founder's Trophy for Endeavour was such a surprise and such a boost.
"It's awarded to the member who has shown the most improvement, and to think anyone had even noticed that I had was genuinely touching.
"Living up here, you can get used to thinking of yourself as isolated, invisible, and unimportant, and one of the best things a group like Elgin Writers does is dissuade you of that notion."
Ian Williamson's 'The Church' was also named as winner of the group's poetry competition, while he and his wife Moira – who won the President's Trophy last year – were joint winners of the Halloween competition.
Margaret Woodward's 'Safe Haven' was named as the winner of the winter competition.
Elgin Writers' Group meets on the first Wednesday evening of every month. Meetings are currently on Zoom but writers hope to begin meeting at Elgin Library again this year.
Its aim, through workshops, talks, feedback and competitions, is to help aspiring authors grow in confidence and skill or just to enjoy putting pen to paper.
Writers of all abilities and preferred genre – poets, prose, fiction and non-fiction writers – are welcome.
Anyone wishing to join should contact Elgin Writers' Group on Facebook or email Elginwriters1@yahoo.co.uk.
