The Young Writer of the Year Award 2020 shortlist

I always enjoy seeing what books are shortlisted for the annual Sunday Times/University of Warwick Young Writer of the Year Award. It gives a snapshot of some of the most exciting emerging British and Irish literary talent. To be eligible, writers need to be 35 or under. Judges for this year's prize include the writers Sebastian Faulks, Tessa Hadley and Kit de Waal. Normally only four authors are listed for the prize, but this year the judges are highlighting five! There are two novels, a memoir and two books of poetry. 

I'm very happy to see Jay Bernard's moving collection “Surge” on the list as it was one of my favourite books that I read last year. These dynamic multi-voiced poems are a response to the New Cross fire of 1981, in which thirteen young black people were killed. I also loved recently reading Naoise Dolan's first novel “Exciting Times”. Dolan was included in the Guardian's '10 Best Debut Novelists of 2020' list in January. The novel brilliantly and hilariously describes a wayward young Irish woman living abroad in Hong Kong who gets mixed up in a complicated love triangle.

I'm very eager to read Sean Hewitt's book as I enjoyed reading his poetry pamphlet “Lantern” last year. The poetry in “Tongues of Fire” contains prayers, hymns, vespers, incantations and longer poems that describe experiences of sex, grief and loss. Earlier this year, I started reading Marina Kemp's debut novel “Nightingale” and kept meaning to go back and finish it. So it being listed for this prize is a great prompt to return to it. The story concerns a young woman who leaves Paris to become a nurse for a tempestuous old man in a sleepy French village. Finally, Catherine Cho's memoir sounds fascinating and powerful as it recounts her experiences on a psychiatric ward after being diagnosed as having a rare form of postpartum psychosis.

The winner will be announced in a digital ceremony on December 10th. Let me know if you've read any of the books on this shortlist or if you're keen to now. 

The Young Writer of the Year Award 2018

It may have one of the longest prize names around, but it’s always exciting to follow The Sunday Times/Peters Fraser & Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award, in association with Warwick University to see what exciting new writing talent is highlighted and celebrated. Past winners include great authors such as Zadie Smith, Sarah Waters, Naomi Alderman, Adam Foulds, Sarah Howe, Sally Rooney and Max Porter (who won the main prize in 2016 when I was on the official shadow panel.) It’s quite unique how eligibility is open to authors whose first book is fiction, non-fiction or poetry so there’s always a diversity of disciplines included in the shortlist.

This year’s prize is particularly exciting since one of the judges is Kamila Shamsie (who has had a very busy year around book awards winning the Women’s Prize and also judging The Golden Man Booker Prize). The 2018 shortlist includes two novels and two books of non-fiction. Unsurprisingly (since I mostly read fiction) I’ve read the novels but not the other two. I was entranced by the rich, imaginative journey of Imogen Hermes Gowar’s “The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock” and captivated by the intimate familial and social struggles at the heart of Fiona Mozley’s “Elmet”. Both authors are very different in their choice of style and subject matter but equally talented and I hope they’ll have long careers as novelists. Having listened to the authors speak at a special event for the prize, I’m very intrigued to read Laura Freeman’s memoir about overcoming an eating disorder and Adam Weymouth’s book about an Alaskan river journey. 

The 2018 shortlisted authors & judge Andrew Holgate

The Shadow Panel this year has written really engaging reactions to all the books and it’s exciting to see their winner is Imogen Hermes Gowar. However, The Shadow Panel decision doesn’t always sync with the actual judges’ decision. When I participated in this we chose Jessie Greengrass’ story collection as our winner. Although I’d be delighted to see Gowar or Mozley win the prize, I wonder if one of the non-fiction books might take the prize this year since it’s been some time since a non-fiction book has won. The winner will be announced this evening, but whatever author the judges select as the winner I’m glad that this award continues to encourage some of our best modern writers.

The Sunday Times/Peters Fraser & Dunlop Young Writer of the Year 2016 Shadow Panel Winner

Who knew the first official shadow judging panel meeting to decide on our own winner for this fabulous young author award would be so bloody?!? Shouting matches, fist fights, eye scratching, hair pulling and that wild Simon Savidge even tore apart one of the books with his bare teeth in a Bjork-style fury! It was sheer mayhem. Actually, I’m kidding. It couldn’t have been more lovely. Our very organized and excellent chair of judges Dan Dalton kept us well in line. We sat chatting with cups of tea and slices of cake (a lemon-ginger layer cake with toasted marshmallow frosting I baked in honour of Naomi’s birthday) for two hours. We talked in detail and depth about the four totally diverse and absolutely fascinating books nominated for this prize. Honestly, everyone agreed they are all such strong books and all worth reading. But, since we had to choose one, after some well-reasoned arguing we selected our winner. Remember that this is only our shadow jury winner (a fan favourite, if you will) and the official winner will be announced on December 9th.

Fab group Charlie Place, me, Dan Dalton, Naomi Frisby, Simon Savidge & Kim Forrester

Our shadow jury winner is Jessie Greengrass for her daring and intelligent book of short stories “An Account of the Decline of the Great Auk, According to One Who Saw It”. We agreed that Greengrass is an extremely accomplished, interesting and promising writer. We were compelled by the frequent themes of loneliness and arctic weather in several stories. I particularly admire how Greengrass subtly challenges preconceptions of gender by purposefully leaving it obscure about whether the protagonist is male or female in several of her modern-day stories – similar to what Ali Smith does in her short stories but Greengrass' fiction explores such different ideas. Interestingly, we all had some favourite stories in the collection. Upon rereading many of the stories, I gravitated most towards the emotionally poignant ‘On Time Travel’ and the brutal humour of ‘The Lonesome Trials of Knut the Whaler’. There is such a rich diversity of ideas and subjects explored throughout the collection that I think Greengrass is an extremely exciting new author that you should all watch out for.

Be sure to check the PFD site where they’ve gathered lots of our reactions to all the books listed for the prize and where the official winner of the 2016 award will be listed on December 9th. Let me know your thoughts about our winner or any of the other nominated books!

The Sunday Times/Peters Fraser & Dunlop Young Writer of the Year 2016 Shortlist

I am absolutely thrilled that these four talented writers have been shortlisted for this year’s Sunday Times/Peters Fraser & Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award for 2016. I’ve had the pleasure of reading all four of their excellent books before (click on the titles below to see my full reviews of each book) – and I even interviewed Jessie Greengrass at an event in Waterstone’s recently!

The Ecliptic by Benjamin Wood

Physical by Andrew McMillan

An Account of the Decline of the Great Auk, According to One Who Saw It by Jessie Greengrass

Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter

Most of them I read over a year ago so it’s going to be fascinating going back to these books to see if my feelings about them have altered and it’ll be especially exciting discussing them with the super fab official shadow panel which I’m part of. How to pick a winner between books which are so wildly different in content and form? There’s an epic novel about the creative process; poetry which gives a radical slant on masculinity/the body; creative, heartfelt, funny & philosophical short stories and… however you choose to define Max Porter’s deeply moving novella/poetry/dramatic monologue/literary criticism/self help book!

Comparing these books is going to be a huge challenge so I would absolutely love it if you would read some or all of them along with me and let me know your thoughts! Or, if you’ve read them already, which would you pick as the winner?

The official winner will be announced on December 9th with our own shadow panel selection being announced some time before that. So stay tuned!

Becoming a shadow judge for The Sunday Times/Peters Fraser & Dunlop Young Writer of the Year 2016 Award

I snapped this pic of Sarah Howe looking very excited when it was announced she won the prize last year.

A book prize I love following is The Sunday Times/Peters Fraser & Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award. This is an award which came back with gusto last year after being on hiatus since 2009. Only writers who are 35 years or younger are eligible. It’s wonderful to see promising young writers encouraged and supported in this way. Not only does the winner receive an award of £5000 but the runners-up also receive £500 each – a nice addition which means it’s not all or nothing for the writers being recognized. The shortlist for the 2015 prize was so interesting and diverse with the winner being Sarah Howe who wrote the beautiful book of poetry “Loop of Jade”. This award straddles multiple genres considering fiction, non-fiction and poetry, but I think it’s particularly nice that a poet was recognized for such a prestigious prize. Past winners have included great literary stars including Adam Foulds, Zadie Smith, Sarah Waters, Caryl Phillips and Helen Simpson.

So I'm delighted that I've been invited to join an official shadow panel for this year’s prize alongside great book bloggers Naomi from TheWritesofWomen, Kim from ReadingMatters, Simon from SavidgeReads and Charlie from TheWormHole. When the shortlist for this year’s prize is announced we’ll be reading all the books on it and meeting to discuss them to decide our own winner. This will be announced as a kind of fan favourite proceeding the announcement of the actual winner. I’ll be so excited to join in as having detailed discussions and debates about books is what I love most!

The shortlist will be announced on November 6th.

The winner will be announced on December 9th at a ceremony at the beautiful London Library – this is a library I particularly love. Back in May I wrote about a special publication “On Reading, Writing and Living with Books” which came out as part of the library's 175th anniversary.

Stay tuned to find out what authors are shortlisted for this year’s award and our discussions about the books. I hope you’ll join in reading them with us!