UHI Scribblers are presented with the HISA Award for best society by Principal Chris O'Neil at a ceremony at UHI Inverness.
On October 29th, UHI Inverness held a special awards ceremony for the HISA Award for Best Club or Society, presented to UHI Scribblers — a society that supports the new Creative Writing degree, but is open to all and supports writers across the wide UHI geography.
Principal Chris O’Neil graciously began the award ceremony, reflecting on the blunt, often hostile nature of communication in the current context of divisive politics. There is a certain level of depth, finesse, and nuance missing from the way we, as a society, talk about the issues we are passionate about — and this is one of the reasons that the work of the Scribblers, as well as the Arts more broadly, is so essential right now. Writers and artists help us, as a society, convey feelings and thoughts about sensitive or controversial issues with a care and finesse missing from much of our bombastic media.
Lynne Russell, the president and founder of the society, talked about how she wanted the club “to be a space that brought students, alumni, and lecturers together to have fun, learn about the world of creative writing, and to support each other — but importantly to create a community”. Luckily, she found equal enthusiasm from her classmates, including secretary Debbie de Oliveira and treasurer Polly Edwards. The society works alongside the degree and their lecturers, and has been a really important space for students and staff to come together to talk writing, experiment with new projects, and workshop each other’s ideas.
In its short time (about a year), the society has got up to all sorts of wonderful activities: they run workshops, author talks, writing competitions, and social or “talk shop” meetings. Last year, they wrote, costumed, and performed an online panto! They encourage and support any student interested in creative writing and help each other connect to larger writing communities. In addition to all this, they also have a passion for fundraising for charitable activity. One of their priorities is to fund a student place at their creative writing residential, as they don’t want cost to be an obstacle for classmates to participate in this opportunity to learn, share, and build community.
As part of the award ceremony, they held a competition to write on the theme of community. Each piece submitted illustrated the passion of this group not only for the written word, but for how community brings us together. The winning piece (see below) by Debbie de Oliveira was read aloud during the ceremony to great praise; it’s a clear example of how the finesse and craft of poetry can express emotion and a depth of understanding.
If you would like to get involved or learn more about this incredible society, visit their page at UHI Scribblers.
We, the Woven
By Deborah de Oliveira
Are we just strangers, walls apart,
Each heart a lone, unlit spark?
They shout in headlines, whisper lies,
Our paths divided by bigot cries.
But lies can’t break what hands have sewn,
Nor fracture roots now deeply grown.
This quiet truth we’ve always known:
We rise together, not alone.
A shared laugh at a coffee stall,
A neighbour’s knock, a video call.
These threads, though small, begin to bind,
A patchwork strong, communal mind.
They try to splinter word from word,
Rewrite what’s felt, reshape what’s heard.
But stories told from soul to soul
Escape control, and make us whole.
They fear the circle we create,
Where difference does not lead to hate.
Where meals are shared, and names are learned,
And bridges grow where trust is earned.
We, the woven, hold the line;
Not built of blood, skin tone, or sign.
But built of care, and act, and voice,
Of showing up, of conscious choice.
Let them push fear, scream divide,
We’ll answer with the love they hide.
For every lie that threatens fall,
We rise in truth. Words free us all.