2016 Robert Louis Stevenson Writing Fellows Announced

Press Release

Scottish Book Trust is delighted to announce that its four Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowships, involving a month-long writing residency in France, have been awarded to author Lucy Ribchester, journalist and non-fiction writer Claire Prentice, poet and performer Rachel McCrum and poet Stewart Sanderson.


The Fellowship was initiated in 1994 by Franki Fewkes, a Scottish RLS enthusiast, and is supported by Creative Scotland. Intended to give writers a chance to escape the hustle and bustle of their everyday lives to devote time to their writing, it provides residencies for four writers at the Hôtel Chevillon International Arts Centre at Grez-sur-Loing. Travel and accommodation are paid for, and there is a grant of £300 per week to cover living expenses.


Grez-sur-Loing is situated at the edge of the Forest of Fontainebleau, and was chosen because of its connections with Robert Louis Stevenson who first visited in 1875. It was there, at the Hôtel Chevillon, that he met his future wife Fanny Osbourne. Stevenson found both the place, and its community of writers and artists, highly attractive and he returned to Grez-sur-Loing for three successive summers.

Edinburgh-based author Lucy Ribchester will attend the residency in July. In 2013 she won a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award and in 2015 was shortlisted for the Costa Short Story Award. Her two novels, The Hourglass Factory and The Amber Shadows are published by Simon & Schuster. During the residency she will work on her third novel, set in a different historical period to the previous two, but continuing the themes of adventure and the ways in which women set themselves free.

For further details of the Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship please visit http://www.scottishbooktrust.com.