With the support of the Ulster-Scots Agency, The Linen Hall will be hosting its third annual Ulster–Scots writing competition this Summer.
There will be two competition categories, one for prose and one for poetry. The winner for each section will receive £500 and one runner-up for each section will receive £250.
The winners will be announced during the Ulster-Scots Language Week in November and the winning entries will be published in a special edition anthology.
A distinguished panel of judges has been assembled to adjudicate, Dr Carol Baraniuk, Dr Frank Ferguson, and Ally Heather.
The deadline for entry is Thursday 31st August 2023 at 5 pm, and below you can find the Entry Guidelines.
Dr Carol Baraniuk
Dr Carol Baraniuk is a member of the Glasgow University team editing Robert Burns’s letters for publication by Oxford University Press. She completed her PhD at the University of Glasgow in 2009, and her thesis on Burns’s Ulster-Scots contemporary James Orr was published as James Orr, Poet and Irish Radical (2014). She has published and presented widely on Ulster-Scots and Scottish literary traditions. Carol has an essay on the early twentieth-century Co. Down poet, Florence Wilson in the recently published, Irish Women Poets Rediscovered (2021) and two essays in preparation for the forthcoming Oxford Handbook to Robert Burns, one co-written with renowned Burns scholar Gerard Carruthers.
Dr Frank Ferguson
Dr Frank Ferguson is the Director of the Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies. He has over fifteen years’ experience as a researcher and teacher in literary studies and creative writing. He joined Ulster University in 2005 as a Research Associate at the Institute of Ulster Scots Studies and became a lecturer in 2010. Before then he had taught at Queen’s University Belfast. From May 2023, Dr Ferguson has been a member of the Board of Governors of The Linen Hall.
Ally Heather
Ally Heather is a writer, presenter and columnist from Scotland’s east coast. He works regularly on the BBC and writes for several Scottish newspapers regularly. He was raised in a village where Scots is a prominent language, and has always used it in his work. He has hosted Na Trads, Scotland’s first bilingual Gaelic/Scots television programme, since 2020.
The Linen Hall (Belfast Library And Society For Promoting Knowledge) is registered with the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland NIC 104 564.
