She was born in a workhouse and never got a formal education.
But she became one of the north’s best-known authors – and now, a fellowship has been awarded in her name.
Moniack Mhor’s creative writing centre has announced the recipient of the annual Jessie Kesson Fellowship – poet and novelist Claire Askew.
This annual award was established in 2009 in honour of Jessie Kesson and her work.
The winner of the award receives a stipend of £350 a week for the month of March, where they will be in residence at Moniack Mhor.
Claire’s poetry has appeared in numerous publications, including New Writing Scotland and The Dark Horse.
Ms Askew is the author of This Changes Things which was shortlisted for the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award and the Saltire First Book Award.
She is also a novelist, and her debut novel-in-progress, Three Rivers, won the 2016 Lucy Cavendish College Fiction Prize. Claire was a Scottish Book Trust Reading Champion for 2016, based at Craigmillar Library in Edinburgh. She holds a PhD in Creative Writing and Contemporary Women’s Poetry from the University of Edinburgh.
On being awarded the Fellowship, Claire said, “I’m absolutely thrilled to be taking up this opportunity in 2017. I feel honoured to be taking up a fellowship that bears Jessie Kesson’s name: she was an inspirational woman as well as a brilliant writer.
“I’m hoping that during my time at Moniack Mhor, some of her magic might just rub off on me.”
Last week, people around the world were able to search and view 110,000 birth entries from 1916 and 64,000 death entries from 1966 on ScotlandsPeople.
Entries include the birth record of Kesson (nee McDonald), who wrote The White Bird Passes. She was born in Inverness on October 29, 1916 and died in 1994.
