This year’s winner is Sophie Duncan. She graduated with a first-class degree in English and Scottish Literature. Her modules included ‘Romanticism: Themes, Genres and Contexts’ where she studied The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (her favourite Scott work) and The Heart of Midlothian; ‘Modernism, Myth, and Romance’ where she read the poetry of Nan Shepherd and Hugh MacDiarmid; and ‘Creative Writing: Prose’ where, as well as writing our own stories, she read Muriel Spark and John Burnside. She also took a Celtic Civilisations course in my first year, which got her interested in Scottish oral storytelling traditions. She returned to this interest for my dissertation, which was titled ‘Four Scottish Fairy Tales: An Encounter with The Bizarre’ which was awarded a very high mark. She found this a fascinating topic to write about and particularly enjoyed looking into the links between fairy tales and stories that children write and tell.
Professor Penny Fielding presented the award in George Square.