I’m heading for the Scottish Association of Writers’ conference (SAW) at Erskine Bridge Hotel, weekend of 22nd-24th March. It’s a really buzzy weekend meeting up with friends in the writing world from all over Scotland and meeting new people.

In past years the SAW has awarded me The Hebridean Award for drama. The Hebridean Award was a sponsored competition for several years and it was for a two-hander for two women. My play CLINICAL KNOW-HOW was the first winner in a year when Chris Ballance was the judge. Clinical Know-How is available to licence from the author and is a good festival play, but would also be an awareness raising piece for women’s groups. Black comedy full of sharp one-liners and social observations.

I’ve also been privileged to win the Helensburgh Trophy for the regular drama competition with my play LOVE TO DEATH. It’s set in a rehab and is now published by Plays4theatre. The link to their catalogue, my page in their catalogue, is here:

http://www.plays4theatre.com/bookdetails.php?pr=712

This year at SAW, I’ve entered the sketch competition with one I wrote earlier. Whether it catches John Binnie’s eye: wins or sinks, it’s likely to be performed. The programme now includes performance of the entered sketches by the entrant’s clubmates on Friday night. It was good fun last year, so I thought I’d give it a go.

As with all things that were ‘not until…’ the conference is now next weekend and I need to remember to print off copies of the sketch. There’s nothing more excrutiating than watching four or five try to read their ‘bit’ from one copy.

Scottish Association of Writers is an umbrella organisation of writers clubs/workshops etc in Scotland. It started when Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Greenock clubs came together over forty years ago and is still going strong.