Alan Trotter has been named winner of the new Sceptre Prize for emerging writers.

Announced on 15 March at the Aye Write! literary festival, Alan was awarded the £1,500 prize for his entry Muscle, a gritty and wry portrayal of a seedy underworld of guns, violence and payback.

Alan said: “I'm delighted to have won the first Sceptre Prize. Writing is such an isolating task that to know there is interest in what I'm doing is hugely encouraging. I had a great year on the University of Glasgow’s Creative Writing MLitt course and I'm surprised, excited and very, very happy that the judges at Sceptre have put such a great ending to it.”

Alan, 25, from Aberdeen, graduated from the University’s Creative Writing Masters Course in 2007 and beat off strong competition from the other two shortlisted entries by Roy Gill and Matt Leavey to be named the inaugural Sceptre Prize winner.

Bob McDevitt, Publisher at Hodder in Scotland and member of the judging panel, said: “I enjoyed the judging process enormously and was very impressed not only with the quality of the submissions but with the maturity and focus the short listed writers displayed when required to share the Aye Write! S
stage with the likes of A.L. Kennedy, John Burnside, Alasdair Gray and Dan Rhodes. Roll on next year.”

The annual Sceptre Prize is jointly run by the University of Glasgow and Sceptre (an imprint of Hodder and Stoughton) to encourage new Scottish novelists. All students from the University of Glasgow’s acclaimed Edwin Morgan Centre for Creative Writing who achieved Distinctions in their final projects were eligible to enter.

Notes

For a copy of the winning entry, or more information, please contact Kate Richardson in the University of Glasgow Media Relations Office on 0141 330 3683 or email K.Richardson@admin.gla.ac.uk

For Sceptre publicity enquiries please contact Henry Jeffreys on 020 7873 6177 or email henry.jeffreys@hodder.co.uk

Founded in 1995 the University of Glasgow’s Creative Writing Masters Course has proved one of the most successful of its kind in the UK and one which has nurtured a wide range of talent inclusing Rachel Seiffert, Louise Welsh, Zoe Strachan, Laura Marney and Anne Donovan.

Sceptre was founded as Hodder & Stoughton’s literary imprint in 1986, and publishes both fiction and non-fiction. Dedicated to publishing new talent alongside long-established writers like Thomas Keally, William McIlvanney and Allan Massie, Sceptre has launched the careers of novelists such as David Mitchell, Andrew Miller, Siri Hustvedt, Jill Dawson and Jake Arnott.

First published: 1 April 2008

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Notes to editors

For more information please contact Kate Richardson in the University of Glasgow Media Relations Office on 0141 330 3683 or email K.Richardson@admin.gla.ac.uk