anne brown essay prize

The award was set up earlier this year following the death of broadcaster Anne Brown, aged 78. Garavelli was presented with the prize and a trophy by Brown’s daughter Jo Lawrence. Brown's son, Richard, introduced the event. 

Garavelli said: “It's just an absolute thrill to win this prize. It was it was so exciting just to see my name alongside other people's whose work I love and respect and to be among them. And then to win was so unexpected.” 

She welcomed the creation of the prize as providing a much needed new forum in Scotland for long reads and went on to pay tribute to Anne’s journalism, which she described as “inspirational” and “forensic”. 

The judges also gave a special commendation to Jemma Neville for her essay "Away with Birds", a heartbreaking account of losing a newborn baby during the pandemic.  

Richard Brown said: “My mother was a tireless champion of this festival. She was never happier than when she was here and the festival was in full flow. At the time of her passing we thought, as a family, that the creation of this prize would be an excellent way to commemorate Anne and support the festival in a way that reflected her many interests in literature, her curiosity about people and love of Scotland – she really loved Scotland.” 

Adrian Turpin, artistic director of Wigtown Book Festival, said: “The quality of the finalists was outstanding. Any one of them could have made a worthy winner. The panel faced an incredibly difficult choice. 'The Bequest' is an extremely personal piece of writing about family relationships. But in Dani's hands it becomes universal.   

“The prize is an important addition to Scotland's literary landscape. This year lays a very strong foundation for the future, for this prize to build and build in strength and to become Scotland’s bold champion for the best non-fiction writing and writers.” 

The essays will be published on the Wigtown Book Festival website .   

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Anne Brown Essay Prize

• Glass, Roger (Recipient)

Prize : Prize (including medals and awards)

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• wigtown book festival
• shortlisting

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Shortlisting announcement for Anne Brown Prize 2023 - including 'On the Covenant' by Rodge Glass

Rodge Glass wins Anne Brown Essay Prize for Scotland - announcement in Herald newspaper

Wigtown Book Festival launches major national essay prize

Wigtown Book Festival has announced the launch of a new national essay prize for Scotland in association with the BBC.

The £1500 Anne Brown Essay Prize will be awarded for the best literary essay, published or unpublished, by a writer in or from Scotland.

The annual award has been created in memory of Anne Brown (1942-2021), former Wigtown Book Festival chair of trustees and a widely respected BBC radio producer. It is generously supported by her children, Jo and Richard.

The judging panel, which includes broadcaster Sally Magnusson and New Yorker writer Larissa MacFarquhar, will be looking for precise writing, original thinking, curiosity, and creative approaches to non-fiction topics.

There are no set subjects for entries, and no specific requirements to write about Scotland, although entrants are encouraged to address: ‘aspects of our shared social, cultural or emotional lives.’

Speaking on behalf of the family, Richard Brown, a New York-based film producer best known for the feature Outlaw King and TV series including True Detective and Catch-22, said: ‘My sister Jo and I are happy to have the opportunity to inaugurate the Anne Brown Essay Prize. Our mother was tirelessly devoted to current affairs, literature, broadcasting – and to Wigtown Book Festival.

‘We knew Anne was a great mother but I’m not sure we fully understood what an extraordinary producer, reporter and colleague she was. She always insisted on giving the credit to everyone but herself. The outpouring of grief and the many hundreds of tributes we have received since we lost her has been inspiring and moving.

The late Anne Brown

‘This prize encapsulates her various passions and interests. Nobody would have looked forward to reading the entries more than she would have.’

Anne had an accomplished career and spent most of her working life as a broadcast journalist with the BBC, starting in the London newsroom, moving to current affairs in Newcastle and in the mid-80s she joined BBC Radio Scotland, working as a reporter, presenter and producer in Dumfries, Selkirk, Aberdeen, Orkney and Shetland, as well as Edinburgh and Glasgow.

She wrote and produced many documentaries, produced Newsweek Scotland and Good Morning Scotland, and presented a regular series of programmes for the World Service. She was commissioned by Canongate to write a book about the alleged child abuse scandals in Orkney in 1991.

In a voluntary capacity, she became the first chair of Wigtown Book Festival’s trustees in 2007, and played an important role in developing the charity and establishing the festival as one of Scotland’s best-loved annual literary events.

Adrian Turpin, artistic director, Wigtown Book Festival, said: ‘We all feel the loss of Anne deeply. Simply, she was the best of the Wigtown Book Festival, and we would like to thank her family for creating such a fitting memorial.

‘The essay is one of the most exciting and vibrant forms of writing today and it’s overdue that Scotland should celebrate its best essayists. We hope this annual prize will be a valuable addition to the nation’s literary ecology.’

The winner will be announced at a ceremony at the Wigtown Book Festival on Sunday 26 September, subject to Covid restrictions. Details of how to enter, guidelines and terms and conditions will be available at www.wigtownbookfestival.com .

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Wigtown Book Festival announced today the launch of a new national essay prize for Scotland in association with the BBC. The £1,500 Anne Brown Essay Prize will be awarded for the best literary essay, published or unpublished, by a writer in or from Scotland.

The annual award has been created in memory of Anne Brown (1942-2021), former Wigtown Book Festival chair of trustees and a widely respected BBC radio producer. It is generously supported by her children, Jo and Richard.

The judging panel, which includes broadcaster Sally Magnusson and New Yorker writer Larissa MacFarquhar, will be looking for precise writing, original thinking, curiosity, and creative approaches to non-fiction topics. There are no set subjects for entries, and no specific requirements to write about Scotland, although entrants are encouraged to address “aspects of our shared social, cultural or emotional lives”.

Speaking on behalf of the family, Richard Brown, a New York-based film producer best known for the feature Outlaw King and TV series including True Detective and Catch-22 , said: “My sister Jo and I are happy to have the opportunity to inaugurate the Anne Brown Essay Prize. Our mother was tirelessly devoted to current affairs, literature, broadcasting – and to Wigtown Book Festival. “We knew Anne was a great mother but I’m not sure we fully understood what an extraordinary producer, reporter and colleague she was. She always insisted on giving the credit to everyone but herself. The outpouring of grief and the many hundreds of tributes we have received since we lost her has been inspiring and moving. “This prize encapsulates her various passions and interests. Nobody would have looked forward to reading the entries more than she would have.”

Anne had a wide a varied career, becoming a highly respected senior producer with BBC Radio Scotland ( see notes below ). In a voluntary capacity, she became the first chair of Wigtown Book Festival’s trustees in 2007, and played an important role in developing the charity and establishing the festival as one of Scotland’s best-loved annual literary events.

Adrian Turpin, artistic director, Wigtown Book Festival, said: “We all feel the loss of Anne deeply. Simply, she was the best of the Wigtown Book Festival, and we would like to thank her family for creating such a fitting memorial. “The essay is one of the most exciting and vibrant forms of writing today and it’s overdue that Scotland should celebrate its best essayists. We hope this annual prize will be a valuable addition to the nation’s literary ecology.”

The winner will be announced at a ceremony at the Wigtown Book Festival on Sunday 26 September, subject to Covid restrictions. Details of how to enter, guidelines and terms and conditions will be available at www.wigtownbookfestival.com .

• Wigtown Book Festival

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Anne Brown Essay Prize Shortlist

It's a special privilege to be trusted with your work. Thank you to everyone who entered the Anne Brown Prize this year. Congratulations to all who made the shortlist.

· On the Covenant, Rodge Glass

· Longyan, Katie Goh

· Impermissible Joys, Roxani Krystalli

. Just Come a Little Closer: Raze (2013), Kirsty Logan

· An Absence Tells the Story, Victoria McNulty

· A Seed, Paul McQuade

· The Birds of the Sun, Stephen Rutt

. Hunting for Vakulenko, Jen Stout

· Sinship, Monica Wolfe

Established in 2021 by the family of the late BBC Scotland journalist and Wigtown Festival Company chair Anne Brown, the £1,500 prize aims to celebrate the best literary essay by a Scottish writer. It will be awarded at a ceremony at the Wigtown Book Festival on Sunday 24 September, hosted by the author and broadcaster Gavin Esler, who is also chair of this year’s judges.

You can attend this event in person and online. Book your tickets here.

With subjects ranging from generational trauma in Glasgow to the threat to Scotland’s indigenous languages, the nine-person selection matches established and emerging talents - including two authors writing in their second language. An expert in international relations at St Andrews University, Greek-born Roxani Krystalli makes the list for her essay about expressing joy in the face of sorrow. Raised in Bucharest under communist rule, Monica Wolfe contrasts her Scottish and Romanian families’ attitudes to sin and secrets.

Best-known for his biography of Alasdair Gray, Rodge Glass tries to understand his relationship with his Jewish family in his piece “On the Covenant”. In “Just Come a Little Bit Closer: Raze (2013)”, novelist Kirsty Logan explores the relationship between female intimacy, violence and eroticism, while performance poet Victoria McNulty’s “An Absence Tells the Story” reflects on the personal and societal consequences of Irish emigration to Scotland.

Migration is also central to Katie Goh’s “Longyan”. The only author to have been previously shortlisted for the prize, she takes inspiration from a journey she made to her grandparent’s village in China.

Two of the shortlisted entries directly address environmental themes. Saltire Award-winning nature writer Stephen Rutt looks at climate change by considering a single species of bird, while “A Seed”, by translator and short-story writer Paul McQuade, draws parallels between ecology and minority languages.

The list is completed by Shetland-based journalist Jen Stout, whose “Hunting for Vakulenko” is based on her reporting from Ukraine.

Wigtown Book Festival artistic director Adrian Turpin said: “Nobody was more curious about the world than Anne Brown. She would have been fascinated by the diversity of human experience and emotion revealed in these essays. With more than 100 entries this year, we are delighted that the award is becoming a vital and established part of Scotland’s literary landscape. We’d like to thank Anne’s children, Jo and Richard, for making that possible.“

The Anne Brown Prize awards £1500 for the best literary essay by a writer in or from Scotland

Constant and dedicated champion of the Book Festival since its inception, the Essay Prize was established in honour of Anne Brown’s contribution within Wigtown as well as her astonishing career in radio and broadcasting and her cultivation of new talent in journalism.

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