Well looky, looky.
It's an all-woman short list for this year's BBC National Short Story Award which was previously won by Clare Wigfall and Julian Gough.
The shortlist is:
Other People's Gods by Naomi Alderman
The Not-Dead and the Saved by Kate Clanchy
Moss Witch by Sara Maitland
Hitting Trees With Sticks by Jane Rogers
Exchange Rates by Lionel Shriver
The winner will be announced on the evening of Monday, 7th December.
More here.
WOMEN RULE WRITER: Lit blog of Nuala O'Connor / Nuala Ní Chonchúir
16 comments:
Ahem, Lionel? :)
Ahem, yes?! That's her name!!
G'way! You're joking me ? Lionel!!?? Or is it lee-on-elle, pehaps?
No, it's LIE-ON-ELLE, like Mr Richie.
She's American but lives in London - that's how she qualifies to enter. You need to be either UK born or resident.
and she felt in the publishing world people would be more inclinded to read her work if they thought she was a man so she changed her name. She read at the Dublin Writers week a few years back, interesting women and her books aren't bad too!
Ah, so she wasn't christened that. Interesting. I wonder if her real name is Mary or something like that...
she did tell us her real name but I can't remember it now, from a child she wanted a boys name, she came from a house full of brothers....I was very taken with her at the time.
I haven't read her work though I always mean to read 'We Need to Talk...'. But she writes a mean non-fic article and I like her general feistiness.
Maybe the judges thought,we can't have it all just women, we better put at least one man in.How about that Lionel, he's really good? Tee hee!
Oh yes, I'd say that's exactly what happened, TFE. Silly judges. She sure fooled them with her...femaleness. Those feminine wiles, see? SEE?!
I'd love to get a picture of a nubile person of some sort and a penname and test out publishers' resistance. All I need is a plausible manuscript. It would be a nice bit of satire in action.
Yay for the women. Long may they write, have their voices heard and win awards.
Nubile male or nubile female, Ossian? There ARE nubile males!
Ossian is kind of sweet - you could just use that and then add a double barrel surname. e.g. Ossian Jolie-Knightley. That should do it. Oh, and the book of course.
Elisabeth - yes, I agree, 100%! Go girls!
Excellent isn't it, Nuala? I heard the announcement on Radio 4 and the judges were saying they did feel that women rose to the challenge of the short story better than men (something about the novel being "macho" but I didn't really listen to that bit).
Hee hee, Sarah - maybe the next decade will be a new go-ahead win-it-all era for women writers. Here's hoping, girl!
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