Edge Hill Prize Shortlist 2012

Congratulations to the Edge Hill Prize shortlisted authors:

A.J Ashworth
Tessa Hadley
Sarah Hall
Zoe Lambert
Rowena Macdonald

You can read my reviews and follow links to interviews, blogs and other reviews by clicking on the authors' names. The winner will be announced on 5th July at a ceremony at the Free Word Centre in London.

The best of luck to the shortlisted authors. I can't wait to find out who wins.

Next year, I won't be assisting with the prize. I'll miss the reading so many outstanding collections - attacking an enormous pile of books is my idea of heaven - but I plan on being extremely busy with my PhD thesis and novel.

2012 Edge Hill Prize longlist

The 2012 Edge Hill Prize longlist has just been announced via the Edge Hill website. I am excited to finally discuss what I have been reading during the past 10 weeks and I will be posting reviews of each of collection shortly. 


Longlisted authors and collections are as follows:

• Nina Allan - The Silver Wind (Eibonvale). Allan is a regular contributor to Interzone and Black Static, and was short-listed for the 2010 British Fantasy Award in the Short Fiction category.
• Hanan Al-Shaykh - One Thousand and One Nights (Bloomsbury). The Lebanese novelist, short-story writer and playwright, is one of the leading contemporary women writers in the Arab world. Some of her wok has been banned in parts of the Middle East.
• Gaynor Arnold - Lying Together (Tindal Street Press). The former social worker was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize 2008 and the Orange Prize for Fiction 2009.
• A.J Ashworth - Somewhere Else, Or Even Here (Salt Publishing). This debut collection of short stories won Salt Publishing's Scott Prize 2011.
• Neil Campbell - Pictures from Hopper (Salt Publishing). This is Campbell's second full-length collection. He has had numerous short stories and poems published.
• Charles Christian - This is the Quickest Way Down (Proxima Publishing). Christian is the founding editor of Ink Sweat & Tears.
• Stanley Donwood - Household Worms (Tangent Books). Donwood is known for his close association with the British rock group Radiohead, having created all their album and poster art.
• Catherine Eisner - Listen Close To Me (Salt Publishing). Eisner's fictions have appeared regularly in a number of UK literary journals and she is an Associate of the Royal College of Art.
• Stuart Evers - Ten Stories about Smoking (Picador). A former bookseller and editor, Evers now writes about books for the Guardian, Independent, New Statesman, Time Out and other publications.
• Orfhlaith Foyle - Somewhere in Minnesota (Arlen House). The writer and poet was born in Nigeria to Irish missionary parents. Living there as well as Kenya and Malawi has had a profound effect upon her writing.
• Sue Gee - Last Fling (Salt Publishing). Acclaimed novelist and controversial winner of the 1997 Romantic Novel of the Year Award.
• Tessa Hadley - Married Love (Cape). Hadley reviews regularly for the London Review of Books and the Guardian and was short-listed for The Story Award in the US. She has also been a judge for the IMPAC literary prize 2011 and for the BBC Short Story Award 2011.
• Sarah Hall - The Beautiful Indifference (Faber). Multi award-winning Hall has been featured in The Times 100 Best Books of the Decade.
• Beda Higgins - Chameleon (Iron Press). The part-time nurse won first prize in the Mslexia Short Story Competition in 2009 and her work has been included in various anthologies and collections.
• Nigel Jarret - Funderland (Parthian). The Welsh freelance writer and former newspaper reporter is a winner of the Rhys Davies Prize for short fiction.
• Dave Jeffery - Campfire Chillers (Dark Continents Publishing). Jeffery is best known for his zombie novel Necropolis Rising, which has gone on to be a UK number one Bestseller.
• Fred Johnston - Dancing in the Asylum (Parthian). The writer, journalist and musician from Galway is also the founder of the Western Writers Centre.
• Zoe Lambert - The War Tour (Comma). The Creative Writing lecturer at the University of Bolton is finishing her first novel and is an active campaigner for the rights of asylum seekers.
• Stuart MacBride - Twelve Days of Winter: Crime at Christmas (Harper Collins). The Scottish writer is most famous for his crime thrillers.
• Rowena Macdonald - Smoked Meat (Flambard). This first collection is based on Macdonald's experiences waitressing while travelling in Montreal.
• Felicity McCall - A Pitying of Doves (Guidhall Press). This is the first short-story collection from the Irish journalist and award-winning playwright, screenplay writer and novelist.
• Alan McCormick - Dogsbodies and Scumsters (Roast Books). A Writer in Residence with InterAct, a charity providing fiction readings for stroke patients, McCormick's stories have been widely published.
• Erinna Mettler - Starlings (Revenge Ink). After working at the British Film Institute for 13 years Mettler decided to start writing in between raising a family and is now studying for her MA.
• Robert Minhinnick - The Keys of Babylon (Seren). The Welsh poet, essayist, novelist and translator has also been short-listed for the Sunday Times Short Story Award 2012.
• Jim Mullarkey - And (Doire Press). The runner-up in the 2003 Galway Cúirt Poetry Festival has recently facilitated creative writing workshops for adults with learning difficulties.
• Courttia Newland - A Book of Blues (Flambard Publishing). The rapper and music producer is a British writer of Jamaican and Bajan heritage who was short-listed for the 2010 Alfred Fagon Award and long-listed for the 2011 Frank O' Connor Award.
• Edna O'Brien - Saints and Sinners (Faber). Once banned in Ireland, the Irish author now has a string of awards under her belt and won the country's 2011 Frank O'Connor prize for this short story collection.
• Cassandra Parkin - New World Fairy Tales (Salt Publishing). An up-and-coming writer and winner of Salt Publishing's 2011 Scott Prize.
• David Rix - Feather (Eibonvale). A British writer in the areas of Horror and Magical Realism/Speculative Fiction.
• Robert Shearman - Everyone's Just So, So Special (Big Finish). Shearman is best known as a writer for Doctor Who and has been previously short-listed for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize.
• Simon Kurt Unsworth - Quiet Houses (Dark Continents Publishing). The British writer of supernatural fiction was nominated for a 2008 World Fantasy Award and his work has been published in a number of anthologies.

Edge Hill Short Story Prize 2011 - the winners

Last night the 2011 Edge Hill Short Story Prize was awarded in Blackwell's Charing Cross bookshop.

Graham Mort won the main prize for his collection 'Touch'.



Tom Vowler won the readers' prize for his collection 'The Method and Other Stories'.

Avril Scott won the MA prize for her story 'The Limitless Possibilities of Life'. And Claire Massey's story 'Marionettes' which will be published by Nightjar Press in 2012, was commended by the judges

It was a lovely evening. All of the shortlisted authors were present except for Graham who was teaching writing in Uganda. I met writers Michele Roberts, Polly Samson, Tom Vowler, Elizabeth Baines and Alison MacLeod for the first time. Jeremy Dyson who won the main prize last year announced the 2011 winners, and Helen Simpson was there too, but I didn't get chance to speak to her which may have been a good thing considering how star-struck I was last time I met her.

I also met two of my favourite short story writers again: Adam Marek and Rob Shearman. I was extremely excited to hear that Adam is working on short stories for the rest of 2011 following his Arts Foundation Fellowship and during the course of the evening I somehow managed to separate Rob from a copy of his brand new collection 'Everyone's Just So So Special' (actually, he gave it to me because he is lovely and I grasped it tightly in case he changed his mind). I can't wait to begin reading it.

After the award ceremony I stayed up until the early hours reading the final chapters of my friend Jenn Ashworth's new novel 'Cold Light' (fantastic story-telling and characterization; well worth the tiredness today). This morning I had a look around the British Museum's Treasures of Heaven exhibition which was delightfully macabre and resulted in dozens of scribbled notes on my tube timetable. Before Ailsa Cox and I caught the train back to Southport I bought a huge box of Krispy Kreme donuts which means that my children love me tonight and a couple of other things are also making me smile: I had my PhD admission viva on Thursday and I'm in! I was also successful in my application to be an Associate Creative Writing Tutor at Edge Hill; I start in the autumn.


Photographs of Tom, Avril and Jeremy are from the Edge Hill website.

Edge Hill Prize Shortlist 2011

The shortlist for the 2011 Edge Hill Prize was announced today.

The five, shortlisted collections were a pleasure to read. Congratulations to Graham Mort, Polly Samson, Helen Simpson, Michele Roberts and Tom Vowler.

Short reviews of each collection can be read by clicking on the writer's name:

Graham Mort

Polly Samson

Helen Simpson

Michele Roberts

Tom Vowler                                                                                             

Edge Hill Prize Longlist 2011

I can finally mention the short story collections that I've been reading in recent weeks, as we have just announced the longlist for the Edge Hill Prize. Twenty collections have been longlisted (see below, text by Nicky Speed). I've added images of all the covers: although you certainly can't judge the books by them, I think each cover definitely 'says' something about its book. I'm looking forward to writing about each collection in the coming weeks. 

Martin Bax - Memoirs of a Gone World (Salt Publishing). The world-renowned Consultant Paediatrician lives in London and, in addition to his medical career, is editor of the long-running literary journal Ambit which he founded. 

Alan Beard - You Don't Have to Say (Tindal Street Press). The librarian from Birmingham City University has had the bug for writing from the age of nine and recently had his second collection published to rave reviews.

Peter Bromley - Sky Light and Other Stories (Biscuit). Winner of the Biscuit International Short Fiction Prize in 2009, he walks, writes and runs in North Northumberland.

Jo Cannon - Insignificant Gestures (Pewter Rose Press). The doctor from Essex initially joined a reflective writing group for medics and has just had her debut collection published.

Roshi Fernando - Homesick (Impress Books). The London writer won the 2009 Impress Prize for New Writers. She is also on the long-list for the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award 2011.

David Gaffney - The Half-life of Songs (Salt Publishing). The debt advisor turned writer draws upon these experiences in his written work. He has also written a set of short operas, developed with classical composer Ailis Ni Riain.

Vanessa Gebbie - Storm Warning, Echoes of Conflict (Salt Publishing). The journalist and award-winning short fiction and flash fiction writer is also the editor of Short Circuit: A Guide to the Art of the Short Story.

James Kelman - If it is Your Life (Penguin). Also well known as a cultural and political activist, the Glaswegian won the Booker Prize in 1994 and in 2008 he won Scotland's most prestigious literary award, the Saltire Society's Book of the Year.

Andre Mangeot - True North (Salt Publishing). Prize-winner in the 2006 Peterloo and Wigtown/Scottish National poetry competitions, the Cambridge writer is also a member of the performance group, The Joy of Six.

Jay Merill - God of the Pigeons (Salt Publishing). The freelance editor from London has had her short stories published in a wide number of literary magazines in the UK and USA.

Magnus Mills - Screwtop Thompson (Bloomsbury). The former bus driver from Birmingham was also columnist for The Independent newspaper before becoming a novelist. He won the McKitterick Prize in 1999.

Graham Mort - Touch (Seren). The Lancashire-born creative writing professor is also acknowledged as one of contemporary verse's most accomplished practitioners. He has written short fiction and radio drama for BBC Radio and also won the 2007 Bridport Prize.

Nik Perring - Not So Perfect (Roast Books). The author who lives Cheshire writes mostly short stories, which have been published widely in the UK and abroad and used in a distance learning creative writing course for US high school students.

Susannah Rickards - Hot Kitchen Snow (Salt Publishing). The short fiction writer and creative writing teacher won the Scott Prize in 2010 for her debut collection of short stories

Michele Roberts - Mud, Stories and Sex and Love (Virago). Winner of the WHSmith Literary Award, the half-English half-French writer is also Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia.

Polly Samson - Perfect Lives (Virago). The London-born author and journalist has written lyrics for two number one albums. Married to Pink Floyd's David Gilmour, she has also been asked to judge several prestigious writing competitions.

Helen Simpson - (Random House). Winner of the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award and the Hawthornden Prize, she was also selected as one of Granta's top 20 novelists under the age of 40 in 1993. Inflight Entertainment is her fifth short story collection.

Fiona Thackeray - The Secret's in the Folding (Pewter Rose Press). The Edinburgh-born writer who runs a national charity has won prizes in the Macallan/Scotland on Sunday ‘Shorts' competitions. In 2007 she travelled to Poland to give readings at the International Book Festival

Tom Vowler - The Method and Other Stories (Salt Publishing). Winner of the Scott Prize 2010 for this début short fiction collection, he is assistant editor of the literary journal Short FICTION.

Susie Wild - The Art of Contraception (Parthian). The writer, editor and journalist has written for many national publications including The Guardian. Her debut short film, featuring her poem Dim Smoking Girls, won The Co-op Award for New Directors at Beyond TV Festival 2007.

      

                       

   

                                                                                                                                                                       

 

                                                                                                            

     

                

                 

Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical

I was lucky enough to meet Rob Shearman at the Edge Hill Prize award ceremony. He signed a copy of his collection Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical for me and even drew a dalek for my boys.

I'm supposed to be writing the theoretical part of my MA manuscript at the moment, but I thought I'd just have a peep at the first story in Rob's collection - I had to keep reading. Here's my goodreads review:


 Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical by Robert Shearman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This collection starts with 'Love Among the Lobelias', a very funny story involving the devil as a romantic fiction author. The next story, 'Roadkill' is touching, funny, creepy and ultimately ambiguous. 'Sweet Nothings', the story of a love-sick pig in the garden of Eden has everything I look for in a short story: tenderness, humour, originality and surprise. 'Pang' provides creepy/surreal/every-day contrasts and the grotesque ending is satisfying in a way that surprised me.

I read 'This Creeping Thing' during my children's new-fangled, everyone's-a-winner, let's-play-team-games, sports day. 'This Creeping Thing' is a wonderful story about love, loss, wishing and being haunted by memories of the people/animals we love. Some of the teachers noticed that I was reading and waved at me to stop. One of my children howled put that book down at me while he was waiting in a queue to retrieve bean bags from under a parachute. I did look up when the children were "competing" (I use the word in its loosest possible sense) but I kept reading at all other times. I would recommend the collection to other parents stuck in similar circumstances!

I've continued to read just a story or two each day. These stories are like expensive chocolates, they shouldn't be gobbled, they need to be savoured and appreciated. I'm not going to write about every story - there's only so many times I can allow myself to write 'tender', 'funny', 'creepy', 'surprising', 'strange' etc etc. I agree with Steven Hall's introduction: 'You'll find heartbreaking humanity nestling quietly on every page.'
I can see myself reading many of Shearman's stories again, something I don't do very often.

View all my reviews >>

Edge Hill Prize continued...

I'm currently torn between modestly ignoring the Edge Hill MA Prize or irritating people by going on about it, but as this is the only time in my life that I have won anything and bearing in mind the fact that it may never happen again, I've decided to go for option 2!

Things that have happened/appeared in the press as a result of the prize:

Here is an article that talks about the Edge Hill Prize and its winner, Jeremy Dyson.

At the prize ceremony I met Derek Neale a fiction writer who helped design and write course materials for the Open University writing courses. I was thrilled to meet the man whose writing exercises scaffolded my early attempts at fiction. Derek encouraged me to continue to work towards becoming an Open University tutor, something I've wanted to do ever since I began my first OU module, Start Writing Fiction (I'll stop here or this entry could easily morph into a blog entitled 'The Open University changed my life' which it did, in more ways than I have time to list right now). The Open University have subsequently interviewed me about my time studying with them and winning the Edge Hill MA prize and I will link to the interview at the OU community online when it is available.

This morning a friend pointed out to me that Mslexia guest editor Christina Patterson mentioned my story in her commentary about the selection process for Issue 46. 'Just in Case' (or 'Baby Skeleton' as it was called when I submitted it in January - I changed the title to allow for more surprise) was described as 'a macabre glimpse into the life of a woman who worked in a handbag shop' and 'one of a number that could easily have made it into the final six.' When 'Just in Case' and another story, 'Sinking' came back from Mslexia with a note saying they had both been shortlisted for publication but that neither had made the final cut, I wondered if "shortlisted" was a euphemism for "binned", but apparently not!

I did an interview for Radio Four's Front Row earlier this week which I will blog about at some point.



































Above is the local newspaper's coverage. They essentially took the article straight from Edge Hill's PR department, but changed the headline to 'Mum Scoops Top Literary Award' demonstrating their incredible propensity for exaggeration. They also included an obligatory local paper mistake by getting the only text for which they were responsible wrong: Cerys Bray appears below the strangely shaped photograph!

Here Edge Hill's article about the MA prize. It's popped up in other places too such as here. It's odd to see myself described as 'Southport Mum', but I am a mum and I do live in Southport, so it's an accurate description, if not the one I would have necessarily chosen for myself in these circumstances.

To the right is another piece from a local paper which I assume must have been picked up from the Edge Hill website. They've ratcheted up the 'mum' descriptions by referring to me as 'mum-of-four'.

As a result of the prize, two agents have read 'Just in Case'. One has asked to read further stories, while the other has expressed an interest should I write a novel in the future. It's been a very exciting 12 days.

The Princess and the Footy

I'm just finishing off putting together the Writing Club magazine. Big thanks to Claire Massey for telling me how to format and organise an online magazine - she knows all about it, as you can see here.

At some point I'll blog about everything that has occurred as a result of winning the Edge Hill MA Prize, but things are still happening, including a radio 4 interview which I will blog about soon.

For now, here is another re-imagined fairy tale from the Writing Club magazine:


The Princess and the Footy

Once upon a time there was a Prince who was a real Liverpool FC supporter. Out of the millions of girls he had been out with, none of them were real Liverpool supporters. They were pretending to be Liverpool supporters to impress him.

            
            One really hot day a Princess came into the Prince’s castle because she was sunburnt. She was a real Liverpool Supporter. When it was night the Prince put a signed Liverpool ball at the bottom of her bed.

           In the morning the Princess felt the ball. The Prince was spying on her. He saw her kiss the ball and he had found a perfect match.

The 2010 Edge Hill Prize.

Given the contents of my previous blog entry, it may seem that my silence during the past 2 weeks is related to England’s embarrassing performance against Germany, but it isn’t. I’ve had to button my lips and cross my typing fingers to prevent myself from blurting out some news about the Edge hill Prize. 

This year the prize had a new, student component and two weeks ago I found out that I had won it. I wasn't allowed to say anything until after the award ceremony which occurred last night at Blackwell's bookshop in Charing Cross, London. I won £500 which was fabulous, but the best part of the prize was having my winning story made into a little book.

During the evening Rob Shearman, who was nominated for the main prize, signed a copy of his short story collection Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical for me. He was kind enough to address it to two of my boys who love Dr Who and Rob's Dalek episode (although they probably aren't old enough to read these short stories yet).  Rob drew a Dalek shouting "Exterminate Sam and Daniel" which will be much appreciated by the boys when they see it. He won the £1,000 Readers' Prize.

Jeremy Dyson of The League of Gentlemen and The Armstrong and Miller Show won the main £5,000 Edge Hill Prize for his collection The Cranes that Build Cranes.

It wasn't until I was on the train back to Twickenham where we had parked our car, that I looked inside my little book and discovered that author Chris Beckett winner of the 2009 Edge Hill Prize had written a foreward to my story which was definitely the best part of the prize.

My winning story Just In Case was a slightly edited and retitled version of a story which I blogged a small section of here.