A holiday cottage owner and her mum have launched a creative writing competition in the hope people can turn adversity into creative growth.
Susan Emmison has two seafront cottages in Pitullie, near Sandhaven, but due to coronavirus has had to cancel all bookings for the next few months.
While isolating with her mum Isobel Gregory, they got chatting to relatives in America who mentioned the idea of a competition for a writers’ retreat.
They pair loved the idea and have now launched their own worldwide writing competition, which challenges budding writers to pen a short story or poem to win a week’s stay at the cottages.
Mrs Gregory said: “My daughter’s cottages are the ideal location for a writers’ retreat so we thought it would be a fun and positive thing to do having them as a prize while getting people to be creative.”
The pair did some research into how a writing competition could work and set it up online. Short stories can be up to 10,000 words and poems up to 12 lines.
Ms Emmison, whose cottages are called Pew with a View and Door to the Shore, said: “One of the things we’ve all seen is people in Italy, there’s people having parties on their verandas but we can’t do that here as it’s too cold.
“We thought this could be an alternative way to have an isolation project.
“It’s Visit Scotland’s Year of Coast and Waters so we’re sticking with that theme for a few reasons.
“Firstly tourism at the moment, like my business, is decimated so this should hopefully encourage people to come back if they are feeling nostalgic for the coast.
“Secondly it’s marketing for my business so that after this we can claw back some custom.
“Finally it will get people thinking positively about their experiences of the coast compared to the amounts of bad news we are all facing just now.”
TV presenter Zara Janjua, former P&J reporter Karen Allan, who is now a press officer, and poet Fin Hall will judge the entries – which are already coming in from as far afield as Australia and America.
All entries will be published in a Coronavirus Isolation Challenge anthology at the end of the year. The deadline is July 31, with the finalists announced in October.
To find out more, visit www.judgify.me/CoronavirusIsolationCreativeWritingChallange
