A member of British Mensa has been announced as a winner in a national travel writing competition. Neil Matthews, aged 40 from Prestwood in South Bucks, won the Best Unpublished Writer award in the 2008 Independent on Sunday / Bradt Travel Guides Travel Writing Competition. The award was announced at Stanfords Bookshop, Covent Garden, London, on Tuesday 22 July.

This year’s competition theme, which was ‘The Heart of the City’, attracted well over 200 entries. Neil’s winning article Memories in Blue dealt with a visit to the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin. The judges’ comments included this assessment: “A finely managed journey through a city and its meanings…To handle material of this sensitivity and weight… requires real skill, and pushes at the boundaries of the genre.”

Neil has been writing on travel locations and issues for a number of years. He edits the newsletter of British Mensa’s Travel Special Interest Group, and was co-editor of Travels with Mensans, an anthology of writing from the newsletter.

He comments: “I was stunned and delighted to learn that I had won this award. It means a great deal to have one’s writing recognised in this way by eminent members of the travel publishing industry. I’d like to thank all those writers and editors whose writings have inspired me, and whose advice has helped to improve my writing, as well as the sponsors of the competition.”

The prize is a place on a travel writing course in Granada, Spain. The competition is sponsored by the airline BMI and the travel writing training agency Travellers’ Tales, as well as the Independent on Sunday, Bradt and Stanfords.

 

To read Neil’s winning article Memories in Blue visit Stanfords’ website by clicking here

 

Further information;

Bradt - www.bradt-travelguides.com

The Independent on Sunday - www.independent.co.uk

Stanfords - www.stanfords.co.uk