A PEEBLES writer has won an international accolade.

Dorothy Coe was announced as the winner of the Isobel Lodge Award at the 2023 Edinburgh Short Story Awards.

Dorothy’s story, The Survivor, was one of nine entries shortlisted for the gong which celebrates unpublished authors living in Scotland.

Now retired from a career in education, her work was inspired by an event in her family’s history – a fishing boat tragedy off the north coast of Scotland where the only survivor was the boat’s captain.

At the awards ceremony held at the Scottish Arts Trust in Edinburgh, Dorothy said: “I sometimes combine my writing with my keen interest in genealogy.

“I discovered that my ancestor had acted with great courage and fortitude, but because of his deep guilt at surviving while the others on the boat sadly didn’t, these qualities had gone unrecognised.

“I wanted his integrity to be recorded in some way.

“While my story is fictional, I’d like to think that this award is a tribute to him, as well as for my writing.”

The Survivor now appears in the Scottish Art Trust’s anthology Solemates, alongside other short-listed stories from the awards.