Meet Roisin McAweaney, our CHEERIO Novel-Writing Scholar
BY Katie Smart
9th Feb 2021
We’re pleased to announce that Roisin McAweaney has been awarded the CHEERIO Scholarship For Writers With Low Income for her novel-in-progress Salted Caramel. Roisin has won a fully funded place on our Writing Your Novel – Six Months course taught by Laura Barnett and Lisa O'Donnell. Roisin is the first talented writer to receive this scholarship funded by CHEERIO, an eclectic new publishing imprint and media company launched in association with The Estate of Francis Bacon.
At CBC we were instantly struck by Roisin's vivid first-person narrator and compelling psychological story. Her novel-in-progress tackles love and obsession in the current age of social media and influencers. We’re thrilled to have her on board for our upcoming online course and can't wait to find out more about the novel she's working on . . .
Please could you tell us a bit about yourself and your novel-in-progress Salted Caramel?
I've long known writing is something I want to do. Yet weeks, months and sometimes years go by without me fully diving into it. This year I'm really looking forward to embarking on this new project of fiction.
Salted Caramel explores my favourite topic, how affairs of the heart can tip the most rational of us into behaving in an unbalanced way. It's about infatuation, obsession and wishing your reality was different. It's about how the current online landscape can exacerbate these feelings and make our own lives a lonely place to be.
What does winning this scholarship place mean to you?
It means so much! Since forever, writing has just been me and my battered laptop or an old notepad and pen. I'm very excited to share my work for the first time and be surrounded by others who also love to write.
The CBC team are hugely grateful to CHEERIO for their support of our Breakthrough Writers' Programme, an initiative designed to break down barriers to entry for under-represented writers, through this scholarship.
We are dedicated to finding talented writers and helping them get the best out of their novels. It’s very important for us to support writers who would not otherwise have been able to take our courses by offering scholarship opportunities, and we are absolutely delighted that five of our previous scholars have already gone on to get book deals, including Kirsty Capes (her dark and funny feminist debut Careless is set to be published by Orion) and Elizabeth Lee (her bewitching debut Cunning Womenis to be published by Cornerstone). Both novels will be out in spring 2021.
If you're interested in funded writing opportunities and want to study with us, check out The Breakthrough Writers' Programme.