Bobby Aitken Memorial Award for Creative Writing 2022

Founded in 1982 by the family and friends of Bobby Aitken following his death in a car accident. As a keen editor of The Gaudie, Bobby always wanted to encourage creative endeavour.

This prize (£75) is offered for competition and is open to all full-time and part-time Undergraduate Students of the University of Aberdeen. The prize is awarded annually in January for the best single creative work in fiction or poetry.

Prize Rules:

• The entries will be anonymised and judged by members of the University’s Creative Writing teaching team. A copy of the winning entry, along with a brief summary of the judge’s comments, will be forwarded to both the winner and the parents of Bobby Aitken.
• Prose submissions must not exceed 3,000 words. Poems must not exceed 40 lines. Entrants may submit either a single work or a maximum of one poem and one short story. All submissions must be clearly legible (preferably typed) on one side only of A4 paper. The pages of stories should be numbered and securely fastened.
• Entries must be lodged with Julie Parkinson, School of Language, Literature, Music and Visual Culture by Friday 16th December 2022. Entries should be sent to: jparkinson@abdn.ac.uk
• The judges’ decision is final and no individual correspondence will be entered into. The winner will be notified in writing before 31st January 2023. Entries are not returned, so entrants should keep a copy of submissions. Copyright of each entry remains with the author.