Authors Electric

There is a plethora of book awards up for grabs each year. Most of us have heard of the Pulitzer and Booker prizes, probably two of the most prestigious and instantly recognisable in the literary world. Then there are the British Book awards, sometimes called the Nibbies because of the nib shaped trophies. OK I will admit I Googled that one. Others include the Kirkus Prize, Women’s Prize for fiction, International Dublin Literary Award, Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Hugo Award, and the Paul Torday Memorial Prize. Each award has criteria to adhere to regarding date of publication, other specifications can be based on geography, gender, age, or genre. But most primarily reward those who have published through the traditional route with nominations from the publisher. The Ink Book Prize has been “created to recognise and celebrate the outstanding literary work of self-published authors in the UK and Ireland.” It has been established by award-winning author Abiola Bello and award-wi...

Bury St Edmunds has just held the very first fringe literary festival - the Foreword Festival   - which took place on 7th and 8th October. Do click on the link to find out more, it was a marvellous weekend. As part of the inaugural event they held a flash fiction competition, winning stories would be read out at various locations in the town by professional actors. Never one to pass up an opportunity, especially when it is local, I decided I really MUST enter. But what do you do when a deadline is looming? You are running out of time and can't get the creative juices flowing. With the sound of a ticking clock getting louder and louder in my ear I decided to recycle a previous idea and scrolled through my old blogs searching for a suitable story I could tweak. I used to follow a lot of sites that regularly posted writing prompts, the trouble was most of my stories were under 150 words and this one had to be 500, certainly no less than 450. Eventually I found one that was 3...

A haunting atmosphere doesn't cover gaping plotholes. Chatting to a friend about books over Christmas, I mentioned that I rarely read modern literary fiction anymore. Not because I don’t love fiction – of course I do, I write it for children! – but because it’s nearly always a disappointing experience. There’s something about beautiful writing – the chief characteristic of literary fiction – that seems to give the writers a pass when it comes to plot structure. Or even believable characters.  Instead, finely crafted, often poetic prose and the power to conjure up a haunting atmosphere propel many a slim, pastel-teared-jacketed volume up the prize shortlists, with nobody seemingly noticing the gaping plotholes in the story. Or not caring about them if they do.  But I care. If I can’t completely trust the world the author has created, what’s the point of reading on? If the letdown comes right at the end of the book, as it so often does, I’m left with a dispiriting sense of being...