An article that succeeded in communicating the dichotomy of old and new Japan has been selected as the winning entry of The British Guild of Travel Writers’/Traveller magazine Competition for Unpublished Writers.

Run in association with Traveller magazine and Wexas, The Traveller's Club, the Guild competition invited unpublished travel writers to pen a winning 800-word travel article with the theme ‘Portrait of a City’ and attracted close to 200 entries.

The winners were announced before an audience of 350 of Britain’s top travel writers, photographers and travel industry professionals on March 8 at the London Transport Museum during the launch party of the British Guild of Travel Writers' 2011 Yearbook.

First prize went to Rebecca Milford, 24, who has recently completed an MA in Creative Writing from Bath University. Her delicately crafted article described Tokyo and a chance encounter with an old Japanese man. She won a four-day travel writing holiday to be held in Istanbul, Andalucia or Marrakesh courtesy of the travel writing and photography creative training agency, Travellers’ Tales.

“It was absolutely fantastic to win the prize and hear how much professional writers enjoyed my story!” she said. “I love the travel-writing genre and it is a huge honour to be published among these other journalists. It has given me the confidence to continue writing about my wanderings, and I can’t wait to get the creative juices flowing on the writing retreat prize!”

Traveller editor Amy Sohanpaul said it fulfilled her criteria for “an impressionistic pen-portrait, written as an evocative first-person narrative (with a plot and an ending), not a factual destination guide ... with vividness, personal reflection, action, humour, respect for local cultures, adventure and authenticity.”

Second prize went to Helen Moat, 49, a primary school teacher from Derbyshire “with a passion for beautiful language and landscapes”, for a piece inspired by a return trip to Zurich where she had spent time as a young student, whose description the judges agreed was "poignant and original". She won two CityJet flights to her choice of European destination, courtesy of WEXAS – The Traveller’s Club. The third prize winner was Marsha Hillman for a colourful piece about suburban Jakarta. She was awarded 10 Frommer’s travel guides.

The judging panel comprised Sarah Monaghan, prize-winning travel journalist; Amy Sohanpaul, editor of Traveller magazine; Jonathan Lorie, director of Travellers’ Tales Creative Training Agency, and William Gray, Editor of Travel Africa magazine.

The British Guild of Travel Writers is the premier professional association for bona-fide journalists, editors, broadcasters and photographers working in the travel field. “The Guild has supported excellence in travel writing for half a century now and we’re really keen to champion new travel writing talent,” said BGTW Press and PR Co-ordinator Sarah Monaghan. "We were delighted by the response from competition entrants and at the quality of many of the scripts."

Traveller magazine was delighted to be involved in the competition, said Amy Sohanpaul. “We feature new writers and new voices as often as we can - it's an important part of our editorial wish-list. So it gave us great pleasure to read some highly engaging entries from people who are not established writers.”

Note to editors

Rebecca Milford’s winning article will be published in the Autumn 2011 issue of Traveller magazine as well as on the BGTW website www.bgtw.org [Under ‘Awards’] where the second and third prize articles may also be viewed, along with all the judges' comments.

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