If you’re 18 you’re old enough to drink whiskey here in the UK, and you also qualify to enter the Glengoyne Short Story Writing Competition which is being run in conjunction with a new crime fiction festival called Bloody Scotland. It will be Scotland’s first international event of this type, and although it’s being held in Stirling, entries to the writing competition are being invited from all nationalities.

The prize is pure Scots gold too – a hand-engraved Glencairn crystal decanter filled with 35-year-old Glengoyne Highland Single Malt. It’s worth over £2000 and if your story is the one that makes the judges say ‘ooch aye’ it’ll be handed to you at the closing ceremony of the Bloody Scotland festival in September. The best stories, including the winning one, will be published in an ebook by Blasted Heath.

Your short story needs to be under 3000 words and must contain the theme or wording ‘worth the wait’. Details on how to enter can be found at the Bloody Scotland website, along with writing tips from Ian Rankin and other Scottish writers who are supporting the festival. Good luck.

The full Bloody Scotland programme will be revealed on 17 May when tickets go on sale, but the word is that over 40 authors will be participating and there will be more than 20 live events. Those signed up already include Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, Allan Guthrie, Helen FitzGerald, Len Wanner and Stuart MacBride, as well as the Scandinavian authors Karin Fossum and Yrsa Sigurðardóttir. It’s all being put together by Alex Gray, author of the DI Lorimer series set in Glasgow.

For more of our recent coverage of the word weavers of tartan noir click here, and to see a review of Len Wanner’s The Crime Interviews, where he talks to Scottish writers, click here.