Award-winning children’s author announces short story competition winners at John O’Groats
The prize-winners have been announced in the annual Bill Mowat Memorial Short Story Competition.
Award-winning children’s author Barbara Henderson was the lead judge for this year’s contest. It culminated with an event on Saturday in John O’Groats Mill as part of the John O’Groats Book Festival.
The evening began with Barbara giving the audience an entertaining and informative insight into her work and explaining the various stages from writing to publication.
She then announced that the highly commended award had gone to George Pirie for his story The Homecoming, while the 2025 winner was Ben MacGregor for his story The Triangle.
Both were presented with their prizes by Walter Mowat, brother of the late Bill. The competition is sponsored by Walter and his son Andrew.
A booklet containing a selection of the stories was also presented to those writers whose entries are included.
Included in the booklet is a story by Alexander Munro, a P4 pupil at Canisbay. Alexander’s story, The Octopus and the Hungry Bloop, is there to give encouragement to other young people to contribute to the 2026 competition.
Entry forms for both the 2026 categories (adult and young people) can be picked up from Café Groats or by email from ian@baselineresearch.co.uk
Book festival organiser Ian Leith said: “It’s great to see this competition now being established as an annual opportunity for writers, and we look forward to receiving another exciting batch”.
The theme for the 2026 adult competition is Past Times and for young people it is Sea Life.
Bill Mowat died in 2023, aged 80. He represented north-east Caithness on Highland Regional Council for 16 years. He was chairman of Gills Harbour Ltd and a member of Dunnet and Canisbay Community Council.
Bill worked as an Inverness-based reporter for the Daily Record, having started out in journalism as Thurso-based editor of the Caithness Courier.