Tuesday, July 07, 2015

Edge Hill awards


So Kirsty Gunn won the Edge Hill award for her superb, moving and technically brilliant collection of stories, Infidelities. After having read and loved her book, I was chuffed to meet her at the awards ceremony last week, as well as to meet again Madeleine D'Arcy, whom I'd briefly met last year at the Vienna short story conference, and who won the student readers' prize for a story in her sizzling collection, Waiting for the Bullet (sorry the photo is blurred):


 I would hate to have been a judge of the shortlist, though: the other four books, by Carys Davies (The Redemption of Galen Pike), Annaliese Mackintosh (Any Other Mouth), Toby Litt (Life-Like) and Rose Tremain (the American Lover) were all wonderful, as I said here. It was lovely too to meet Annaliese and Toby, and to see Carys again, whom, as a fellow Salt writer, I have known for some time (and whose book I reviewed here.) I always love this event - a celebration of the short story, and a rare chance to meet up with some of the best story writers of our time. Kudos to short-story expert and writer Ailsa Cox for founding and administrating the prize!

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