Congratulations to Penrith’s Katie Hale for winning this year’s Anne Pierson Award for Young Writers in Cumbria. Another Penrith writer, Phoebe Power, was a runner-up, along with Carlisle’s Naomi Rose Geraghty.
Adrian Mullen of The Westmorland Gazette reports:
Never has the value of encouraging young writers been more apparent to me than at the Brewery the other night. The Anne Pierson Award for Young Writers in Cumbria presentation bash highlighted just how much literary talent there really is out there. And, equally important, how crucial awards such as Anne’s are in uncovering that youthful and brave penchant for poet and prose, which otherwise might remain concealed.
As for the judges – well you couldn’t get three finer proponents for all things literary than Kevin Dyer, of Action Transport Theatre, novelist Sarah Hall, and my tip for Poet Laureate (one of these days he’ll land it) Jacob Polley. Their enthusiam was infectious and the praise that they rightly dished out to the 15 short-listed youngsters should have given all the budding scribes a spring in their step.
Of course, the readers brought the pieces to life. Rosie Wates, Hilary Pezet, Joe Jamieson, Sarah Kidd and Simon Yaxley, did a superb job, and had you on the edge of your seat. Totally compelling in every case, they delivered each work with a captivating precision.
Landing first prize for the second time in the space of three years was 19-year-old Katie Hale, from Penrith, with the silky and seductive The Letter O. Runners-up were, also from Penrith, Phoebe Power, with her poem Current Bubble, and Carlisle’s Naomi Rose Geraghty who penned Generation Gap Pie.
The awards ceremony saw new Brewery chief executive Richard Foster presiding over his first AP outing and looking as though he was enjoying every minute. Also on hand as guest speaker, Wordsworth Trust literature officer Andrew Forster gave chapter and verse on his own career.
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