THE Scottish Society of Playwrights (SSP) has announced that the writer Liz Lochhead is to be its new honorary president.
The position is a lifetime appointment, and in the role she succeeds the late Hector MacMillan.
A celebrated poet - she was the Makar - and playwright, Ms Lochhead is a long standing member of the SSP.
She said: "Being a member of the SSP since the early 1980s, even once a member of the council, I was amazed and delighted to be offered the incredible honour of becoming the Society's honorary president.
"I look forward to being an advocate for Scotland's playwrights, and their audiences, in this increasingly difficult time for theatre."
www.scottishsocietyofplaywrights.co.uk
THE Scottish poet JO Morgan has won the Costa Poetry Award for Assurances, his sixth book-length work.
He was one of five winning authors in the Costa categories and is now in the running for the 2018 Costa Book of the Year.
Journalist Stuart Turton won the Costa First Novel Award for The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle.
Irish novelist Sally Rooney won the Costa Novel Award with her second novel Normal People, a coming-of-age love story.
Oxford University Professor of English Literature Bart van Es takes the Costa Biography Award for his memoir The Cut Out Girl, the true story of a young Jewish girl in Holland during World War II who hides from the Nazis in the homes of an underground network of foster families, one of them the author’s grandparents;
Morgan won the Costa Poetry Award for Assurances.
Morgan's father was an officer in the Royal Air Force involved in the Airborne Nuclear Deterrent in the early years of the Cold War.
This forms the basis of Assurances, a "dramatic long-form poem using versed and unversed passages and featuring a variety of perspectives and voices affected by the Cold War."
Hilary McKay won the Costa Children’s Book Award for the second time for The Skylarks’ War.
The five winning authors, each of whom will receive £5,000, were selected from 641 entries and their books are now eligible for the ultimate prize - the 2018 Costa Book of the Year.
The overall winner, to be selected by a panel of judges chaired by BBC presenter and journalist Sophie Raworth will be announced on 29 January.
www.costa.co.uk/costa-book-awards
VISUAL Arts Scotland's show Alight will be staged in the upper galleries of the RSA in Edinburgh from 26 January to 22 February.
The show highlights applied arts and design, contemporary fine art, as well as jewellery and silversmithing.
Artist Ute Decke will be exhibiting as an invited artist.
In a collaboration with Craft Scotland, part of the show focusses on craft makers working in wood, including Beth Legg, Naomi McIntosh and Charlotte Barker.
There is also Graduate Showcase 2019, supported by the Russel Trust.
Artists include Daniel Craddock, Niklas Gustaffson, Jack Handscombe, Erin McQuarrie, Ailsa Morrant and Marcus Murison.
www.visualartsscotland.org
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