Hello, all, 

May 2007

Beautiful sunny May has arrived and I am n ow polishing, editing and checking my latest novel before sending it off to my agent.

This is the ‘itchy’ stage of writing, when something is completed to the best of the writer’s ability, and the time has come to toss it out into the world to see if it can stand on its own. As this stage approaches the next piece of work begins to tug at my subconscious and I become impatient to get to work on it.

Young Author of the Year Award

Congratulations to Rachael Cassidy (16) of St Benedict’s High School, Johnstone, this year’s winner of the Evelyn Hood Award. For several years now, I have been proud to be one of the judges in the Rotary Club of Johnstone’s annual Young Author competition for local schools. The winners in the Under-16 and Over-16 categories are selected by a panel of judges, and five years ago, some generous friends of mine offered to set up the Evelyn Hood Award to enable me to choose a young writer whom I consider to heading for a career as a professional author.

Rachael Cassidy, (16) of St Benedict’s High School, Johnstone, won this year’s Evelyn Hood Award for the most promising young author as well as the Over-16 category in the Rotary Club of Johnstone’s annual Young Author competition.. Rachel and Evelyn are pictured during the Rotary Club’s presentation evening.

It is always a close call, as I find the entries quite impressive. Rachel’s short story was mature and written with a good use of language and imagination, and I was delighted when she said that she hopes to continue with her writing – though I did ask her to take it slowly and wait until my writing career is over before she begins to do really well!

The members of the Rotary Club of Johnstone are to be congratulated on the hard work they put into organising a number of competitions for the local schools.

Changes on the way

But what about the Scottish elections? Apart from the total mess those responsible for seeing that the voting path runs smoothly have made of it this year, it has been an exciting time. Scotland is on the verge of change – mebbes good, mebbes bad, as we Scots would say. But at least it’s change, and we badly need that – something to give us the good shaking up that we all need.

Our councillors and politicians need it more than most. There must be some very nervous souls among them a the moment, suddenly aware that life isn’t as safe and predictable as they thought. They’re going to have to listen more carefully to the voters and taxpayers from now on – and that can only be good for Scotland.

Change is coming in my life too – possibly for the good, possibly for the bad. That’s going to be up to you.

More of that in due course. Watch this space.

And keep in touch, I love hearing from you.

Evelyn Hood

 

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