Indie Published Costa Award Winner Avril Joy talks to Kathleen Jones
For the first time, a major literary award - the Costa prize for short fiction - has gone to an independently published author, once a member of Authors Electric, Avril Joy for a story called Millie and Bird (download and read here) I first met Avril a few years ago when she asked me to go into a women's prison and talk about Catherine Cookson. I found it a very sobering experience and had nothing but admiration at the way Avril worked in this environment on a regular basis. Avril is a quiet, unassuming person with a profound knowledge of human nature acquired through years of working in the prison service as an education officer. Add to that a love of language - Avril is a poet as well as a prose author - and you have a writer with a lot of skills and considerable empathy. Avril's first novels were written with the assistance of a 'Northern Promise ' writers' award from the Arts Council. Her first novel, The Sweet Tr...