A Write Highland Hoolie!

Mallaig Book Festival

November 8-10, 2024

Announcing The Deirdre Roberts Poetry Competition 2024

This is the third year of our popular poetry competitions which has the magnificent prize of an engraved quaich – the Mary Manson Trophy – plus £250 cash, a further £250 in book tokens to be spent in the Highland Bookshop, or with them online, and a bottle of malt whisky so the winner can toast their success.

The competition is held in memory of our former committee member, the late Deirdre Roberts, who gave so much of her time to the community, and we’re very fortunate in having two extremely generous sponsors, Don & Mary Michie and the Highland Bookshop of Fort William.

Our theme this year is humour, and our judge for 2024 is Don Paterson, who is a prolific poet and winner of many awards, as well as a jazz musician and composer. Don will open the Festival on Friday November 8th this year and present the prize at the end of his event.

Last year’s judge was the very entertaining poet, Hugh McMillan, and the winner was Charlie Gracie.

The competition is now open to entries. The closing date is 11pm on Wednesday 31st July 2024 and no late entries will be considered. The winner will be announced on our website and social media on September 1st 2024. There is a fee of £10 for submission of an entry of up to three poems per person and strictly only one entry per person.

We’re looking for humorous poems of up to 40 lines (excluding title and line spacing).

The competition is open to all over the age of 18 writing in English. Poems must be original and not have been published before or won any prizes.

Full rules and the entry form can be found on our website, where you can also pay for your entries: www.a-write-highland-hoolie.com

If you have any queries please contact us on info@a-write-highland-hoolie.com

We’re looking forward to lots of entries this year and hope you will have a go!