Mountain Writing Competition 2022 launched

Mountaineering Scotland has launched its annual Mountain Writing Competition for 2022.

The representative body for hillwalkers, climbers, mountaineers and ski touring enthusiasts in Scotland is looking for the best in new writing about mountains and mountaineering, both in prose and in verse.

Whether it’s the adrenalin rush of rock and ice climbing, the tranquillity and beauty of wandering gentle hills or the wonder of travelling in the high mountains, people have always felt driven to write about their experiences in the mountains. And the steady stream of new books about the great outdoors demonstrates that people like to read about it too.

The Mountaineering Scotland Mountain Writing Competition is open to all, and entries can be fact or fiction, just so long as the subject matter has a connection with any aspect of mountaineering, rock climbing, walking or ski mountaineering / ski-touring. Writers can submit one entry to each of two categories: poetry and prose.

First prize in both prose and poetry sections is £200. Second and third prize winners in each section will receive £100 and £50 respectively.

As well as the cash prizes, winners will see their entries published here in ‘Scottish Mountaineer’, the quarterly Mountaineering Scotland magazine which is read by more than 14,000 members.

Winning entries are also published on the Mountaineering Scotland website.

Run since 1987, the competition is open to members and non-members alike and regularly attracts entries from all over the UK.

Previous winners have included both published authors and people who have taken up creative writing for the first time and include names such as veteran outdoor writer Hamish Brown and more recent arrival John Burns, author of The Last Hillwalker, Bothy Tales and other books. You can read an archive of previous winners in both prose and poetry categories on the website.

For anyone considering entering, prose entries should be a maximum of 2,000 words long and poetry entries should be a maximum of 200 words, and it costs just £5 to enter per category. The deadline for all entries is 5pm on 31st October 2022.

Full rules and details of how to enter are at www.mountaineering.scot/mountainwriting