Ben Nevis: inspiration for Fort William festival entries?

If you fancy being the next Jim Perrin or Joe Simpson, pick up your pen and get writing.

Entries are open for the Wild Writing Competition run by the John Muir Trust at the Fort William Mountain Festival. The trust wants both aspiring and professional writers to submit their works on Scotland’s wild places and landscapes.

Now in its third year, it attracted more than 50 entries in 2008. Competition organiser Alison Austin said: “We are looking for inspiring short stories with the broad theme of ‘experiences in wild places’.

“Your entry can be factual or fictional and could incorporate a journey, a place, an expedition, a mountain or river, a walk, climb, sail or kayak.”

The winner will get a place on a Writing and Place course at creative writing centre Moniack Mhor in Glen Convinth, south-east of Inverness. Judges are writer and teacher in creative writing Linda Cracknell and Hamish MacDonald, playwright, novelist and director at Moniack Mhor.

Pieces in Gaelic are especially welcome and there are sections for poetry and for entries from children. Maximum length is 1,200 words and closing date is 26 January 2009.

Final shortlisted entries will be exhibited at the 2009 Fort William Mountain Festival in March, with the winning piece being published in the John Muir Journal.

Details are on both the John Muir Trust website and that of the mountain festival.