Whisky Focus - Glencairn Glass Crime Short Story Competition 2024 Winner

The Glencairn Glass crime short story competition 2024 has concluded with a sinister tale involving a Scottish recipe for ‘stovies’ taking the top prize, and a grisly narrative about the peculiar sheep of Greshornish securing the runner-up position.

The renowned Glencairn Glass, beloved worldwide as the quintessential whisky glass and crafted by the Scottish glassware company Glencairn Crystal, has named Philip Wilson as the winning author and Elisabeth Ingram Wallace as the runner-up in its annual Scottish-themed crime fiction contest, now in its third year.

Having been a stalwart supporter of Scottish crime writing talent through its sponsorship of the esteemed McIlvanney and Bloody Scotland Debut crime-writing literary awards since 2020, the Glencairn Glass introduced its own crime short story competition in 2021. This competition, held in collaboration with Scottish Field Magazine and the Bloody Scotland Crime Writing Festival, invites both novice and seasoned crime writers to craft "a crime story set in Scotland" in no more than 2000 words.

A staggering 140 stories were submitted for the 2023/24 competition, with the winner and runner-up chosen by a panel of three judges. Among the judges was Callum McSorley, a writer based in Glasgow whose debut novel Squeaky Clean clinched this year’s Bloody Scotland McIlvanney Prize for the Scottish Crime Book of the Year. Joining him was Kate Foster, an Edinburgh-based national newspaper journalist and author whose debut novel The Maiden won this year’s Bloody Scotland’s Debut Prize. Rounding out the panel was Gordon Brown, the marketing director of Glencairn Crystal and an experienced crime writer.

The judges have unveiled the winner and runner-up as follows:

Winner: A Recipe For Stovies by Philip Wilson

The gruesome confession of a food blogger who sought revenge on her violent husband after suffering years of domestic abuse.

Philip Wilson is a writer living in Glasgow. He divides his free time between trying to wrangle his rebellious dog and writing off-kilter short fiction. Time and imagination willing, he's planning to set to work on a full-length novel soon.

Philip said: "I'm ecstatic and really honoured to be selected as this year's winner of the Glencairn Glass Short Story Competition. I stumbled across the competition by sheer luck but knew immediately that I wanted to submit something. No matter what I write, an element of Scotland seems to worm its way into the material somehow, so a crime story set in Scotland was the ideal opportunity to be playful with it. I just hope my story doesn't put anyone off of stovies. It's usually quite a benign dish, cholesterol notwithstanding".


Runner-up: The Strange Sheep of Greshornish by Elisabeth Ingram Wallace

A sinister tale of a disillusioned tourist guide on the Isle of Skye who sends badly behaved tourists to suffer the same fate as the mad sheep in Greshornish.

Elisabeth Ingram Wallace lives in a Skoda in Scotland, usually somewhere in the Highlands. Her short stories have won prizes including The Mogford Short Story Prize, ‘Writing the Future’ and a Scottish Book Trust ‘New Writers Award.’ Recent work has featured in SmokeLong Quarterly, Atticus Review, Barrelhouse, Wigleaf, and anthologies including ‘FUEL – an anthology of Prize Winning Flash Fictions’.

Elisabeth said: "Thank you so much to the judges and to all at the Glencairn Glass, I am delighted to be the runner up in such a fantastic competition. It is a great challenge to write such a short Short Story; under 2000 words is my absolute favourite length, a test to write but long enough to go a little wild and include the odd zombie sheep. I wrote this story in a Bothy near Neist Point over Christmas, while it rained and rained and rained, and it was a real escape to go and commit a few imaginary murders in the sunshine".

Competition judge, Callum McSorley, commented: "It was a real honour to read the brilliant work submitted, and certainly made for some lively discussion during the judging process. The winner’s clever story format made excellent use of the limited space to tell a story equal parts funny and sinister which pulled all the judges in immediately. The runner-up’s scuzzy subversion of an imagined, idyllic Scottish Highlands was similarly smart, comic, and dark."

Kate Foster said: "It was a huge pleasure to read such a brilliant variety of crime stories, and to see the talent in Scottish writing. The judging process was great fun with lots of debate, but we were unanimous in our favourites. The winning entry stood out to me as it was funny, clever, and served up with a flourish. The runner-up was brilliantly written with a really quirky twist."

Glencairn’s marketing director Gordon Brown said: "The quality of the short stories we receive every year is amazing and as both a crime writer and the Marketing Director of Glencairn Crystal I’m delighted that a competition based around Scotland and Crime Fiction can deliver such great works".

Philip Wilson is awarded the first prize of £1,000, while Elisabeth Ingram Wallace receives £500 as the runner-up. Both writers are also granted a set of six bespoke engraved Glencairn Glasses. The winning story will grace the pages of the May issue of Scottish Field Magazine, hitting shelves from April 5th, while the runner-up's tale will be featured on Scottish Field Magazine’s website: www.scottishfield.co.uk. Additionally, both stories will be accessible for reading on the Glencairn Glass website: www.whiskyglass.com.

In the previous year, Frances Crawford from Glasgow emerged victorious in the short story competition with her enthralling tale, "The Dummy Railway," which recounted a disturbing discovery through the perspective of a young Scottish girl. You can peruse all previous winners’ stories at www.whiskyglass.com.

For more details about this year’s McIlvanney and Bloody Scotland Debut crime-writing prizes, alongside information about the upcoming Bloody Scotland Crime Writing Festival in Stirling, Scotland, from September 13th to 15th, please visit www.bloodyscotland.com.

You will find Glencairn's range of sturdy wee whisky glasses as well as their other offerings available from specialist online whisky shops such as The Whisky Exchange and Master of Malt
 

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