Local writers were recognised for their contributions this weekend at the 2018 Bermuda Literary Awards.

Jonathan Smith, Lucinda Spurling, Florenz Webbe Maxwell, F. Colin Duerden, Paul Maddern and Clarence Maxwell and the late Cyril Outerbridge Packwood were honoured at a ceremony held at the Grotto Bay Beach Resort.

The Bermuda Literary Awards began in 1999 to honour literary achievement by Bermuda’s writers. The competition runs once every five to six years, and books are eligible if they have been published subsequent to the previous award cycle.

Mr Smith won the Non-Fiction category for Island Flames, while Ms Spurling claimed the Drama and Screenwriting prize for Me and Jezebel.

Mrs Maxwell was recognised in the Children and Young Adult Fiction category for Girlcott and Dr Duerden won the Brian Burland Prize for Fiction for his novel Fried White Grunts.

Dr Maddern won the Cecile N Musson Prize for Poetry for Pilgrimage, and Dr Maxwell received the inaugural prize for cultural merit for Bermuda’s Architectural Heritage Series.

Mr Packwood was honoured with the Founders Award, for books or scripts published before the awards launched in 1999, for Chained on the Rock.

Lovitta Foggo, Minister of Labour, Community Affairs and Sport, said: “Literary artistry demands talent, hard work, research, time, and dedication; and the writing of a novel or a book of poetry stems from a desire to tell a story about the world we inhabit, in a way that holds meaning for its inhabitants.

“As the Minister responsible for Culture, I am delighted to have a mechanism through which to reward excellence in this area; and I am therefore very pleased to congratulate the winners of the 2018 Bermuda Literary Awards.”