From the Lochaber News: “The John Muir Trust has announced the winners of its 2008 prestigious Wild Writing competition at this week's festival. First prize of a place on a writing course at Moniack Mhor went to Kay Sexton from Sussex for her piece, Cleft, a tale about a challenging climbing incident and the relationship between two people.”

And those who know me well (and especially those kind and generous people who’ve read GK) will immediately spot that this prize - which is the one that assuaged my somewhat irritated psyche during the Willesden Fiasco - has a significance beyond the fact that I’m going to get a free writing holiday in Scotland.

Lochaber, Loch Ness, Fort William etc, all feature in the novel that is currently on an agent’s desk, and yes, the story ‘Cleft’ was developed out of that novel, which does have a rock-climbing heroine … should I take it as an omen? Who knows? What I do know is that it’s been a decade since I was in Lochaber and I can’t wait to renew my acquaintance with some of the most beautiful scenery on the face of the planet. I’m grateful to the judges who picked my work, and to the Arvon Foundation and the John Muir Trust for offering a prize that any writer should be thrilled to win, and above all, to the operation of synchronicity which allowed me to hug this little happiness to my breast while the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune were flung at the ten Willesden Herald finalists earlier this month.

Ben Nevis and highlands image courtesy of coolhawks88