Scottish Book Trust has launched an exciting new writing project to encourage people to write about a secret they would like to share or a confession they would like to make, with a selection of the best submissions to be published in a book.
Secrets and Confessions will run from 30 March – 22 June, and in that time Scottish Book Trust wants to encourage the people of Scotland to confess their little white lies, dastardly deeds and hidden secrets. Everyone has something they haven’t shared with anybody else, and now is the time to get it off your chest.
People of all ages from across Scotland are invited to submit personal pieces of writing, which can be anything up to 1000 words long, about their own secret or confession. They can be written in a variety of different forms, such as a story, poem, song lyrics, a short play or sketch, a letter or even diary entry, and should be submitted via the Scottish Book Trust website.
All pieces of writing will be featured on Scottish Book Trust’s website and a selection of the best submissions will be published in a book, to be given out free of charge during Book Week Scotland 2016 (21 – 27 November.)
Celebrities and authors such as Jenny Colgan, Jo Clifford and Juno Dawson will also be revealing their own closely guarded secrets.
Marc Lambert, Director of Scottish Book Trust, said:
“Scots are traditionally known as a people who like to keep their cards close to their chests. Secrecy, rebellion and dissent are woven into the fabric of our history, making it wonderfully dramatic and eventful. Our literature too abounds with confession, secret and intrigue, while our folklore and oral tradition brims over with the uncanny, the hidden and the magical. And yet the Scots are also a passionate and expressive people attached to truth, and often compelled, come what may, to risk everything and tell it like it is. Our campaign seeks to tap into this rich, often paradoxical, national impulse towards secret or confession. We want to provide the opportunity for modern day Scots to explore their psyche, confess some of their secrets, and to prove that despite reticent habits of their ancestors, they are a liberal and generous people at ease with themselves and their identities in the 21st Century. Naturally we also have great hopes that this will result in some juicy gossip we can all enjoy.”
The project is being run in partnership with the Gaelic Books Council, with stories from Marcas Mac an Tuairneir and Alison Lang.
Submissions can be made online at www.scottishbooktrust.com/writing. The closing date for entries is midnight on 22 June 2016.
