The best of Nottingham’s young creative talent has been honoured at the Nottingham Playhouse on Wednesday the 18th of May.
Hundreds of people attended the 8th Nottingham Young Creative Awards, which aim to give people aged 13 to 24 who live, study or work in Nottingham the chance to show off their creative work, network with future employers and gain valuable industry experience and mentoring.
A record 350 young creatives submitted their work in 10 different categories this year to meet the 2016 theme of ‘Goals and Dreams’.
Creative Writing
The Creative Writing category looks for submissions from talented young writers which interpret the theme through both the development of the city and the people living within the city.
Submissions for this category approached the ‘Goals and Dreams’ theme in innovative ways – such as short stories centred around women discovering their love of football and poems about making dreams come true.
The category was sponsored by the City of Football – a project which aims to inspire and engage with everyone across Nottingham through the power of football to increase participation in the game. Almost everyone in Nottingham has a connection to football – they just might not know it! City of Football want to help people to ‘find their football’ and encourage people to play in new and radical ways.
Goals and Dreams are everything that make football so special and the Nottingham City of Football project is proud to be partnering with the Young Creative Awards in 2016.
Rebecca Constable, the winner of the Creative Writing Award (19 – 24) went on to be named Young Creative of the Year at the event. Read more about her story.
Category winners
19 – 24
Winner – Rebecca Constable, 19 (NTU)
“Rebecca interpreted the theme of Goals and Dreams as someone pushing themselves to overcome dyslexia. This writing is made up of true experiences, some are her own and others are her classmates. There is no age limit to dyslexia so we do not get to see if the character is 5 or 15. Rebecca’s hopes for this short story are to make teachers and students aware of the impact they have on people and to raise awareness of what dyslexia is”
Highly Commended – Natalie Owen, 24
16 – 18
Winner – Elizabeth O’Riordan, 16 (Christ The King Voluntary Academy)
“This short story shows the protagonist falling in love with something and having the sensation of feeling meaningful. However, it presents the issues that she faces, the lack of support and the pressure to be someone she isn’t. Finally resulting in her realising who she is and the world she wants to live in and taking that leap from turning a dream into an active goal”
Highly Commended – Pheobe Ellen Mycroft, 17 (Trent College)
13 – 15
Winner – Anushka Shah, 15
“Anushka’s short story is about living in the idea of a perfect society – a society where everybody is healthy, happy and free. The story is about a dream coming true and a goal being achieved – that one day, the world would be without suffering and everyone would live life at its best”
