Niamh Corkey - Scottish Schools’ Young Writer of the Year – Highly Commended Award

Niamh is currently in S5 at Balwearie studying for her Highers.  Niamh says: ‘I am really delighted to have been Highly Commended in this competition.  I was already working on a piece of non-fiction for my English Higher folio so I submitted that.  It’s a discursive essay about happiness and the premise that genuine happiness is being driven out by our reward-seeking, fast-paced lifestyles.  I had a bit of fun writing it, and became interested in the topic after reading Derren Brown’s book ‘Happiness: Why More or Less Everything is Absolutely Fine.’

And Niamh is no stranger to success in writing.  While a primary pupil at Kirkcaldy West, she won a national competition on GLOW and met children’s author Lari Don.  Then, in S1 at Balwearie she was a Pushkin Prize winner and attended a creative writing course with Carnegie medal-winning author, Cathy MacPhail.