A SPLASH of cash brightened up the future of Northern writers last night as £21,000 of prizes were handed out at this year's Northern Writers' Awards at Cluny Warehouse arts centre, Newcastle.

Northern Writer of the Year, winning £8,000, was Tyneside poet Sean O'Brien, who has been commissioned by Picador to produce a version of Dante's Inferno.

Time To Write Awards of £2,000 went to Charles Fernyhough, of Bishop Auckland, who is completing his third novel, Cumbrian writers John Murray and Janni Howker, and North Tyneside author Peter Mortimer.

Northern Promise cash awards were given to Newcastle poet Anna Woodford and Cumbrian newspaper poet-in-residence Jacob Polley. Pru Kitching, of Stanhope, County Durham, will receive help to develop a poetic novel