Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society reveals winner of award for young critics
Lilia Foster, a third year history student at the University of Edinburgh, has been announced as the winner of the 2025 Fringe Young Writers Award.
As a recipient of the prize, she will receive one-to-one mentoring from arts critics at The Scotsman, followed by paid work as part of the paper’s review team for the 2026 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Tony Lankester, Chief Executive of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, said: “As someone with a background in journalism, I’m delighted that we’re able to continue to support emerging writing talent at the festival. The Fringe represents a wonderful opportunity for writers to learn and develop at the very start of their career, and this award gives us the opportunity to support and encourage arts journalists taking their formative steps. Congratulations to Lilia on receiving the 2025 award – we look forward to following her career and hope to welcome her back to the Fringe in the future. Thank you to the Scotsman team for supporting Lilia over the coming months.”
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Foster impressed judges at the Fringe Society with her writing for Edinburgh University newspaper, The Student. Commenting on her win, she said: “I am beyond delighted to receive the 2025 Fringe Young Writer’s Award. Although I had attended the Fringe before, this was my first year reviewing shows, something that I initially found daunting. However, being a part of a festival which showcased such a wealth and diversity of talent made the challenge feel so exciting and rewarding.”
READ MORE: The Best Edinburgh Fringe Theatre 2025: Every show with a four or five star review from The Scotsman
Established in 2018 to encourage the next generation of arts writers at the Fringe, the Fringe Young Writers Award is open to anyone aged 16-21, submitting work either published or unpublished.
Flora Gosling won the inaugural award, joining the paper's review team in the summer of 2019. Due to the pandemic, the 2019 award-winner Ariane Branigan was unable to join the review team in 2020 or 2021, but contributed reviews to The Scotsman in August 2022. Suzanne O'Brien and Katie Kirkpatrick then won the award in 2022 and 2023, with Róisin McMullan winning the award in 2024.
For more information on the Fringe Young Writers Award, visit www.edfringe.com/take-part/awards/journalism
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