The Long Arm of the Law­less, a short sto­ry by Bar­bara Jenk­ins, has won much praise and a trip to Scot­land for its au­thor.

The theme of crime writ­ing was in­tro­duced dur­ing the 2014 NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest in part­ner­ship with Bloody Scot­land, Scot­land's In­ter­na­tion­al Crime Writ­ing Fes­ti­val, and the British Coun­cil.

Par­tic­i­pants in a one-day work­shop, led by two prize-win­ning Scot­tish crime writ­ers, were en­cour­aged to en­ter a mi­ni Bloody Scot­land short sto­ry com­pe­ti­tion with the win­ner be­ing of­fered an all-ex­pens­es-paid trip to the Bloody Scot­land Fes­ti­val as part of an on­go­ing in­ter­na­tion­al ex­change be­tween the two events.

Dom Hast­ings, fes­ti­val di­rec­tor, said in a re­lease from the Bo­cas Lit Fest: "We were de­light­ed to be able to at­tend the Bo­cas Lit Fest ear­li­er this year, both to show­case Scot­tish writ­ing and ex­pe­ri­ence a fan­tas­tic fes­ti­val and bur­geon­ing lit­er­ary scene.

"I'm in­cred­i­bly ex­cit­ed to be able to bring a small piece of this back to Scot­land and in­vite a Trinida­di­an writer as tal­ent­ed as Bar­bara to our fes­ti­val in 2015."

As a guest of Bloody Scot­land, Bar­bara Jenk­ins will at­tend a crime-writ­ing mas­ter­class with the Uni­ver­si­ty of Stir­ling and be in­tro­duced to the Scot­tish lit­er­a­ture scene.

Jenk­ins said: "I am thrilled. This is my first crime sto­ry but I do plan to con­tin­ue to mine re­al life in Trinidad for in­spi­ra­tion. Denise Mi­na and Al­lan Guthrie led an in­spir­ing work­shop. They even got us start­ed writ­ing at the work­shop.

"From then, there was no way I could just let their gift lie un­used. I must thank the NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest for cre­at­ing this op­por­tu­ni­ty."

For more in­fo about the­Fes­ti­val, vis­it bo­caslit­fest.com or con­tact the Bo­cas Lit Fest at in­fo@bo­caslit­fest.com.