We’re delighted to announce that Mel Reeve’s short story Trawler has won the Grand Jury Prize at our 2024 Writing Awards, hosted on Thursday 24 October at V&A Dundee.
The 11th edition of our annual ceremony – held for the first time in the city traditionally known for ‘jute, jam and journalism’ – provided the opportunity for twelve shortlisted writers to read excerpts from their pieces which encompassed fiction, poetry and creative non-fiction.
The shortlisted pieces were selected from over 300 entries and explore our festival theme In/Visible, considering what it means to be ‘visible’ or ‘invisible’ when we think about our mental health. While the majority of shortlisted writers are based in Scotland, we were also delighted to shortlist two writers from the USA, demonstrating the growing international reach of the competition.
Trawler by Mel Reeve, which won this year’s Grand Jury Prize, is a surreal short story exploring mental illness, disability, and the fragility of modern life. The narrator watches as her partner becomes invisible, hidden in water, unable to function in daily life due to her failing health and lack of support from the world outside.
Jacqui Paton, Project Manager for Together to Thrive in Dundee at Mental Health Foundation, said:
Trawler struck a chord with us all because of its graceful, almost ethereal style, which seemed somehow to sit within all the categories, encompassing, it felt to us, poetry, non-fiction and fiction. It painted a rich and intimate personal world of individuals gradually becoming unseen by society because of worsening physical and mental health, while representing how deeply the characters in the story witnessed each other, subtly exploring the impact of a loved one’s failing health on their carer.
Mel Reeve is a writer and lapsed archivist living in Glasgow whose work has been widely published, including by 404 Ink, The Skinny, Autostraddle and Gutter magazine. She was the winner of the Glasgow Women’s Library Bold Types prize 2020 and was shortlisted for both the Alpine Writer’s Prize 2024 and the Creative Future Writer’s Award 2023.
Mel said:
“It was a privilege to gather at the stunning V&A Dundee, surrounded by inspiring and talented voices and I’m incredibly honoured that my short story was awarded the Grand Jury Prize. Thank you to the festival organisers and judges for this recognition, and congratulations to all the other writers whose work shared such powerful perspectives. It was really moving to be in such a supportive and creative environment, hearing and sharing work about mental health and visibility.
For me, writing is a way to explore experiences or parts of ourselves that are often overlooked or hidden. So often people dealing with mental health issues can feel alone, and last night was a real reminder of how it feels to come together and be open about these difficult but important topics.”
The competition’s other winners were Say It by Jack Lennon, a short story about avoidance and Twilight, which won the Fiction award; Bobbi Thomson’s The Glesga Effect, a poem about growing up in a deprived area of Glasgow and the stereotypes this instils, which took the Poetry award; and Invertebrate by Lucy Cameron, a diary-style prose piece, written in Scots, about feeling alone in your 20s, which was given the Creative Non-fiction award.
Many congratulations to Mel, Jack, Bobbi and Lucy and all our other shortlisted writers: Louise Hurrell, Terena Elizabeth Bell, Laurie Donaldson, Chris Fair, Blair H. Smith, Iona Bowden, Elaine Robertson and Hyunsuh Choi.
(credit: Ingrid Mur)
You can read the shortlisted work in a special ebook, brilliantly illustrated and designed by Laura Darling, who lives in Dundee.
We are grateful to everyone who entered the competition and would love to have been able to publish many more of the entries. The hundreds of entries we receive each year are always inspiring and provocative. They help us to consider what our theme means to people who approach it through the lens of their own lived experience – as well as their imagination.
Thank you also to our jury members – Canadian writer and scholar Sarah Bernstein, Scottish spoken word poet Tom Bird and Jacqui Paton – for dedicating their time, expertise and thoughtful consideration in selecting the winning entries.
