Creative Writing Awards Evening

On Thursday 5th April, BA (Hons) Creative Writing and BA (Hons) Creative and Professional Writing third years came together to commemorate their time at university at a celebration evening with student readings and awards. It was an opportunity for the whole cohort to reflect on their time at the University of Winchester and to celebrate the incredible writing they’ve produced over the last three years.

This is the second awards evening held for a graduating class of Creative Writing students, with programme leader Glenn Fosbraey explaining that they had decided last year to hold the event to give students and lecturers an opportunity to celebrate their time on the programme. Combined honours student Issy Wyatt said, “The evening was full of kind words and incredible performances, it was really nice seeing the whole cohort together, especially when we all made an effort. It was a marvellous send off.”

Before the awards were presented, students were invited to read some of the work they had produced over the course of the programme. Poetry readings were given by Beth Phillips and Sophie Edwards, who have both had their work published in Lung Party, a podcast produced by the Creative Writing programme’s record label, Splendid Fred Records. Emily Jordan, who read a piece of historical romance fiction said afterwards, “I’m really glad I did a reading, it’s not something I would normally volunteer myself for but it was real high to finish my degree on.” To close the entertainment portion of the evening, there was a quiz which shared some photos of the lecturers in their younger and more vulnerable years along with some bizarre facts about them.

Various awards were presented throughout the evening. The standard of fictional writing was so high that there were two winners of the Best Fiction award, Holly Gammage and Alice Musson. The second award of the evening, the award for Best Film Script went to Lauren Newman, for her impressive film writing work. Joe Wilmore was presented with the award for Best Song Lyrics for his powerful song writing, including the pieces he wrote on the Writing Song Lyrics module. As with the Best Fiction award, the standard for poetry was also incredibly high, so the Best Poetry award was presented to both Jack Stacey and Beth Phillips. After Glenn thanked the lecturers for planning the event and the students for their commitment to the programme over the last three years, the last award of the evening was given: the Outstanding Contribution award was presented to Creative and Professional Writing student Laura Durrant.

As a member of the cohort graduating in October myself, I cannot thank our lecturers enough, both for this evening and for the last three years. I’m sure they’ve had to put up with a lot, but I’m confident all of us will take away some of the (sometimes questionable!) wisdom they’ve shared, whether it’s Antosh’s poetic ramblings, Glenn’s borderline obsessive love of Morrissey, or one of Andy’s extravagant stories. The last three years have been fantastic, and I can’t wait to see what the cohort achieve in the future.

Full list of winners:

Outstanding Contribution

Laura Durrant

Best Children's Writing

Scarlett-Rose Joseph

Best Song Lyrics

Joe Wilmore

Best TV Script

Yotty Harvey

Best Poetry

Jack Stacey

Best Poetry

Beth Phillips

Best Film Script

Lauren Newman

Best Playwriting

Sophie Norton

Best Fiction

Holly Gammage

Best Fiction

Alice Musson

About the author

Laura Durrant - Third year BA (Hons) Creative and Professional Writing student

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