A writing competition aimed at discovering Ireland’s best young travel writers has been announced by the organiser’s of the Immrama Festival of Travel Writing, which is set to take place in the heritage town of Lismore in county Waterford this June.
Young Roscommon writers are now invited to write an 800-word short story about their favourite air journey and where it has taken them on their travels.
Speaking about the travel writing competition, Jan Rotte one of the festival organiser’s says,
“We are delighted to announce the details of the second year of this competition and to also have Aer Lingus as the competition sponsors; last year, this competition took place for the first time and there we over 500 entrants, the standard of writing displayed by the transition year students from all across the country was incredible. We would like to wish all of the entrants the very best of luck and inspiration in writing their pieces for this year’s competition.”
The 2016 winner of the competition was Erin Carr a 5th year student from Dundalk Grammar School. Her teacher Orna O’Reilly attended the festival to accept the award on Erin’s behalf. Erin’s piece was called Escapism and it can be read online at www.lismore-immrama.com/studentcompetition. The competition is now open for entries to students aged between 13 and 18, the closing date for entries is May 20th and submissions can be made via www.lismoreimmrama.com/studentcompetition
The judges this year will be Stephen Kavanagh CEO Aer Lingus, Vickie Stevenson Director CX Emea at AirBnb and Phil Cottier CEO ipsum marketing and the winner of the competition will be awarded with an iPad mini and a €100 Amazon voucher and the teacher of the winning student will be awarded with a €500 Aer Lingus voucher plus tickets to the Immrama Festival.
The fifteenth annual Lismore Immrama Festival of Travel Writing has a stellar reputation for celebrating and sharing world-class travel writing and the 2017 festival line-up offers another stellar line up of internationally renowned writers and broadcasters. From June 14th to June 18th multi award winning author Colm Tóibín, humanitarian and author Terry Waite CBE, journalist and author Des Ekin, writer and documentary maker Tom Feiling and adventurer and author Andrew P. Sykes will all take to the festival stage to share their own writings and journeys under the 2017 festival theme of ‘Emigration, Exile and Slavery’.
On the final day of the festival ‘Family Fun Sunday’ will take place at the Millennium Park, the Lismore Farmers Market will be on the castle avenue plus a Sunday evening event with focus on sport and travel is set to take place.
Full details of the festival programme and for event tickets for the Immrama Lismore Festival of Travel Writing 2017 see www.lismoreimmrama.com or call (058) 53803.