Hi folks
My apologies as it’s been too long since I last posted. I have a good excuse though as I’ve been saving up a ton of good news about former class members’ recent writing achievements:
Firstly, congratulations to Mary Fitzpatrick, who has added to her growing list of accolades with a Scottish Book Trust New Writer Award:
This is the second Scottish Book Trust award winner among former class members, following Julie Rea’s success with the Next Chapter award in 2017: http://scottishbooktrust.com/writing/scottish-book-trust-training-awards/next-chapter-award/2017-julie-rea
Julie has also just had a story published in the latest annual edition of the prestigious New Writing Scotland – https://asls.arts.gla.ac.uk/NWS36.html – and here’s hoping we will see her own full collection of stories in the bookshops soon!
(Note that the current Next Chapter Award’s closing date is 19 September so if you fancy giving it a shot, go for it: https://asls.arts.gla.ac.uk/NWS36.html)
Meanwhile, Mary is also a current finalist for this year’s equally prestigious Scottish Arts Club Short Story Award, along with Colin Armstrong who recently completed Creative Writing for Writers:
If I had my way Colin and Mary would both win (read the stories!), but whoever’s name is read out by Alexander McCall Smith at the awards dinner, getting to the final is a brilliant achievement and well done to both.
Bert Thomson – also a recent Creative Writing for Writers class member – has been in touch to say that four (four!) stories that he worked on during the course will be published soon (or are already out) in new writing anthologies from Laldy literary journal, Dovetales Scotland, The Fiction Desk and New Voices Press. This sets the record of most pieces published in the shortest time for any new writer I’ve had the pleasure of working with, so very well done to Bert and I’m sure he’ll be getting more into print very soon.
I’d also like to give a big shout of congratulations to Lorraine Queen and Denis Robertson, both of whom have recently completed their first novels, supported by the Creative Writing Mentoring Programme. It was a privilege to be the first to read the latest instalments of their manuscripts as they wrote them over the last year – I do hope both books are published soon so they can reach the much wider audience they thoroughly deserve.
Finally, to conclude this epistle of fabulousness, here’s a reminder that the next session of creative writing classes is due to begin at the Centre for Lifelong Learning in first week of October. I’ve listed all the courses I’m tutoring this year in the courses section of the Notebook here:
and you can also book direct at:
To everyone who has attended the classes over the years, good luck with your writing and keep going. This is what can be achieved.
And if you’re coming along this year, I look forward to seeing you in October!
Creative Writing Glasgow 
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