Category Archives: Literary Prizes

Reading as a writer. Writing as a reader. And the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021

Posted on August 14, 2021 by Angela

Last week a friend of mine and I talked about the six books shortlisted for this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction. We’ve done it before and it’s always illuminating (and fun) but because we both write fiction, our conversations are often … Continue reading →

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Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021

Posted on June 14, 2021 by Angela

This week is the week of the Women’s Prize Virtual Shortlist Festival. For the (almost invisible) amount of £12 you’ll have access to three evenings of readings by the shortlisted writers: there are some wonderful works to hear extracts from on … Continue reading →

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Happiness & Rights balanced by Meaning & Responsibility; and William Golding on Women

Posted on October 14, 2018 by Angela

Jordan Peterson, author of 12 Rules for Life: an antidote to chaos said, in an interview with Rabbi Jonathan Sacks on Radio 4 recently (these words come from the beginning and the end of the programme): We’ve been fed a diet of … Continue reading →

Posted in Fiction, Gun Control, Literary Prizes, Morality, Things I'd Love to Have Made, Women, Writers | 4 Comments

Words on Writing, and Pass on a Poem

Posted on June 14, 2017 by Angela

There are hundreds of thousands of words written about writing fiction: how to write, why we write, what to do when we can’t write and on and on so that, sometimes, I feel as if I’m adrift on a sea … Continue reading →

Posted in Artists, Creativity, Death and Dying, Fiction, Literary Prizes, Things I'd Love to Have Made, Women, Writers, Writing | Comments Off on Words on Writing, and Pass on a Poem

How dramatic stories change brain chemistry, and NOT the Booker Prize

Posted on August 14, 2016 by Angela

Good strong stories, as we all know, transport us to other people’s worlds. So, when we’re reading fiction, even though we know the people we’re reading about aren’t real, if the story has a successful dramatic arc we’ll empathise with those imaginary people and … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Literary Prizes, Mind, Psychology, Things I'd Love to Have Made, Writers, Writing | 2 Comments

Why Readers Stop Reading; Lisa McInerney’s 2016 Bailey’s win, and Penicillin

Posted on June 14, 2016 by Angela

An interesting survey on why readers stop reading: There’s more here. It’s published by Lit World Interviews (I found it on a TLC facebook post.) The conclusions are mostly what you’d expect to put readers off (although I particularly loved Unexpected Sex as a deterrent to reading on). But … Continue reading →

Posted in Artists, Creativity, Literary Prizes, Storytelling, Things I'd Love to Have Made, Writers, Writing | 2 Comments

Fog Island Mountains and Dr Atal Gawande, this year’s BBC Reith Lecturer

Posted on December 14, 2014 by Angela

Michelle Bailat-Jones has written a beautiful novel called Fog Island Mountains. I’ve just posted a review of it here. The novel won the 2013 Christopher Doheny Award and I hope it goes on to sell, and so to affect, many many readers. It deserves to … Continue reading →

Posted in Death and Dying, Literary Prizes, Things I'd Love to Have Made, Writers | 2 Comments

Haworth Parsonage, Richard Flanagan and Anselm Keifer

Posted on October 28, 2014 by Angela

In September we holidayed in England: we travelled north-west to Stratford (and saw a wonderful production of The Roaring Girl, a play about Mary Frith, an astonishing sixteenth-century woman who lived and dressed as a man, partly in defiance of … Continue reading →

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The Shock of the Fall : hurray for mental illness in fiction

Posted on January 14, 2014 by Angela

The subject matter of this year’s Costa first novel winner (and now overall 2013 winner), The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Fileris mental illness. Hurray! (Because publishers so often swerve when they see one of those coming.) And hurray for … Continue reading →

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