Gibraltar Year 12 student wins prize for her creative writing in competition with three other countries

AN A-LEVEL student from Westside School won a trophy for her storytelling skills after local judge Jonathan Pizzaro praised her ‘strong sense of place’.

Angelina Bosco was one of eight students to get a prize for the Rock Accord Young Storytellers Prize 2023 for her piece ‘The Old and The New’.

Gibraltar’s 2023 Cultural Ambassador Eleanor Dobbs handed the Year 12 student a trophy and certificate to honour her creative writing skills.

Twelve young people attended Accord Literary and Rock Retreat sessions featuring international speakers.

Poet Benjamin Zephaniah, local writer Jonathan Pizarro and cartoonist Gary Northfield were just part of the line-up that taught the children in online and in person workshops.

According to Accord Literary and The Rock Retreat it would ‘help unleash the creative writing bug in children everywhere’.

As part of the Rock Retreat’s goal ‘to create a joyful and creative writing group’ Gibraltarian students linked up with other children in Bermuda and Accra, capital of Ghana.

The African city is Unesco World Book Capital in 2023.

Bosco’s award was one of eight winners across all three countries that took part in the sessions.

Judge Ele Fountain said Bosco had ‘really stepped into her characters’ shoes to give them authentic voices and to raise some really interesting ideas about what divides and connects different generations’.

“I especially enjoyed the way this story unfolds and the lessons the old man imparts to the narrator,” another judge Ayesha Harruna Attah added.

Head student Eva de Vincenzi and Year 8 pupil Anali Ressa Moreno also got certificates of congratulations for their writing.

All three students will have their work included in the Rock Accord Anthology to be published later this year.

Minister for Education and Culture John Cortes said: “I am really pleased at this coming together of education and culture, and particularly of the success of these young writers.

“This is precisely what we want to promote as we encourage Gibraltarian writing,” he added.

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