BBC Short Story Award shortlist

I've been an ambassador for the National Short Story Award for three years now and I'm thrilled to announce this year's shortlist. It's been described as a bold, experimental selection and I can't wait to read the stories! Congratulations to all of the shortlistees.

  

2013 BBC NSSA winner and four-time nominated Sarah Hall joined by 26-year-old British-Ghanaian photographer Caleb Azumah Nelson, Creative Writing lecturer and James Tait Black Prize winner Eley Williams, poet and newcomer Jack Houston, and Belfast-based writer and 2019 EU Prize for Literature for Ireland winner Jan Carson to complete shortlist of writers exploring race, family politics, millennial relationships and inner-city life.

 BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University 2020 shortlist is:

   ‘Pray’ by Caleb Azumah Nelson

·         ‘In The Car With the Rain Coming Down’ by Jan Carson

·         ‘The Grotesques’ by Sarah Hall

·         ‘Come Down Heavy’ by Jack Houston

·         ‘Scrimshaw’ by Eley Williams

 

The BBC National Short Story Award is one of the most prestigious for a single short story, with the winning author receiving £15,000, and four further shortlisted authors £600 each. The 2019 winner of the BBC National Short Story Award was Welsh writer Jo Lloyd, who won for ‘The Invisible’.

The 2020 winner will be announced live on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row on Tuesday 6^th October.

All five stories will be broadcast on Radio 4 and on BBC Sounds and published in an anthology produced by Comma Press. 

About the short stories:

British-Ghanaian Caleb Azumah Nelson’s ‘Pray’ is a ‘vibrant, invigorating and agile’ story set over a summer in South East London. Charged with ‘wit, anger, affection and sorrow’, the story shows the reality for young black men navigating a world that ‘wasn’t built with us in mind’.  With characters and dialogue so alive they reach out from the page, ‘Pray’ explores fear, injustice, masculinity, race and the origins of violence. Caleb’s eagerly anticipated debut novel Open Water recently sold in a nine-way auction and publishes in February 2021.

Jan Carson, winner of the EU Prize for Literature for Ireland 2019, is shortlisted for her ‘tender, humane and sharply observed’ story ‘In The Car With the Rain Coming Down’. Inspired by her upbringing in rural, Protestant Northern Ireland, she takes both her characters and readers on a literal and emotional journey, weaving together family politics and community rivalries as a family set off on an ill-fated picnic. Tender, nuanced and funny, it will resonate with anyone who is part of an extended family.

Carson is joined on the shortlist by Sarah Hall, the 2013 BBC NSSA winner, twice nominated for the Booker prize and the author of five novels. ‘The Grotesques’ is the ‘brilliantly observed and layered story’ of a young woman’s birthday gathering. Set against the backdrop of privilege and inequality in a university town, it explores themes of toxic mother-child relationships, covert control, scapegoating, and the masks we can wear to either challenge or conform to our place in society.

Shortlisted for the Award for the first time is Keats-Shelley Prize runner-up and one-to-watch Jack Houston with the ‘uncompromising, compelling’ ‘Come Down Heavy’, inspired by his own experiences. Echoes of Kae Tempest and Irvine Welsh imbue the prose-poetry of his ‘breathless’ work – a spiralling, unsettling and disorientating story of two women’s seemingly unstoppable descent into a world on the fringes of society; a world of poverty, violence, addiction and despair.

Completing the shortlist is Eley Williams, Creative Writing Lecturer at Royal Holloway and winner of the James Tait Black Prize, shortlisted for her surreal and succinct ‘Scrimshaw’. A ‘fresh, funny’ take on millennial relationships and the perils of modern smartphone communication, this ‘taut tale’ told via a late-night text session and inspired by the ‘literary nonsense’ of Edward Lear and Ivor Cutler, explores self-censorship, anxiety, attraction and the boundaries of language.

The BBC also continue to celebrate young, emerging talent with the sixth BBC Young Writers’ Award with First Story and Cambridge University shortlist announced on Sunday 20^th September. Open to 13 – 18 year olds, the aim of this Award is to inspire and encourage the next generation of short story writers and is a cross-network collaboration between BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 1. The winner of the BBC Young Writers’ Award will also be announced on 6^th October on Front Row.

Key Dates:

·         From Friday 11 September: Front Row will broadcast interviews with each of the 2020 shortlisted writers on Radio 4 and on BBC Sounds from 7pm on Friday 11, and from 7.15pm on Monday 14, Tuesday 15, Wednesday 16 and Thursday 17 September 2020.

·         From Monday 14 September: Shortlisted stories will be broadcast on Radio 4 and on BBC Sounds from Monday 14 to Friday 17 September 2020 from 3.30 to 4pm.

·         From Monday 14 September: An anthology – The BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University 2020 – introduced by Chair of Judges Freedland and published by Comma Press will be available at www.commapress.co.uk and all good bookshops priced £7.99.

·         Sunday 20 September: The stories shortlisted for the BBC Young Writers’ Award with First Story and Cambridge University will be announced on Radio 1 and on BBC Sounds on Sunday 20 September from 4 – 6pm.

·        Tuesday 6 October: The announcement of the winners of the two awards and a celebration of the 15^th anniversary of the BBC National Short Story Award will be announced in a special short story edition of BBC Radio 4’s Front Row from 7.15pm.

I, Ada blog tour extract

Ada Byron is rich and clever, but she longs to be free. Free to explore all the amazing ideas that come to her imagination, like flying mechanical horses and stories inspired by her travels. Free to find love and passion beyond the watchful gaze of her mother and governesses. And free to learn the full truth about her father, the notorious Lord Byron. Then Ada meets a man whose invention might just change the world - and he needs her visionary brilliance to bring it to life . . . A wonderfully witty and poignant portrayal of the young life of Ada Lovelace, the 19th-century mathematician who is hailed as the world's first computer programmer.

How amazing does this sound? Today is my stop on the blog tour for I, Ada and I'm so excited to read this book! The opening chapters have really grabbed my attention and I have an extra from the beginning of the book to pique yours.

Kirkby Mallory, Leicestershire 

May 1821

I am in the vegetable garden of my grandparents' estate, hunting for fairies. Hunting is the wrong word, because I do not intend to kill and eat the fairies – I would simply like to observe their gossamer-winged ways, and perhaps, if I can, to be friends with them. My suspicion is that these particular fairies live beneath cabbage leaves, and so that is where I am looking when I see the spider's web. Strung like a silvery scarf between the plants, it could have been wrought by the fairies themselves. I've never seen one so close. I stretch out one finger – not to touch, just to get a better sense of it, so intricately woven, so slight and yet so strong – when I hear Mamma.

'Ada, where are you? Ada!'

Obeying the summons, I scramble up via a wheelbarrow onto the low garden wall. I intend to jump off the wall in one neat movement, but the hem of my dress catches on something, and I end up tumbling off it like Humpty Dumpty and into the arms of my mother.

'What in heaven's name were you doing, Ada?' she says, as she sets me down upright and pats the earth from my skirts. 

'Looking for fairies. They're quick, you know – so quick that I can't quite catch them. But I mean to, one day–'

She makes a loud, impatient sound with her teeth as she drags me back along the path towards the house. 'Fairies! I never heard such foolishness. Why must you tear about so?'

'Stillness is for statues,' I protest. 'You wouldn't want me to be motionless all the time, would you, as though I were a horrid, sad, dead thing?'

*   *   *

The warmth and humour of this immediately captivated me and I can't wait to read the rest of the book! Thank you to Andersen Press for the gifted copy and for including me on the blog tour.

Blood Moon review

During Frankie’s first sexual experience with lovely Benjamin, she gets her period. It’s only blood, they agree. No shame.

Then a graphic meme goes viral, turning their fun, intimate afternoon into something mortifying and damaging. And Frankie begins to wonder: is she disgusting?

As the online shaming takes on a horrifying life of its own, her universe implodes. But can laughter, bravery and the fiercest of friends help Frankie find her way out of the darkness?

I read Blood Moon a few weeks ago but haven't had chance to review yet between edits and a five month old baby! It's one of those books that I'm still thinking about and can vividly remember the things I loved about it.

Blood Moon is written in beautifully flowing, lyrical verse. The way it's presented on the page enhances the story and I found that the verse form made for a really emotive, sensory reading experience.

The subject matter of period shaming is one I've never seen tackled in a book before, and actually I rarely come across books that acknowledge characters even having periods. It's definitely a subject that needs more discussion and Blood Moon does this in an honest, compassionate way. There's also plenty of humour and relationship dynamics so the plot feels varied.

I found the characters in this book really interesting and fleshed out well. They have flaws, strengths and interests, and definitely come across like real teenagers. I loved how the book explores Frankie's passion for space.

Blood Moon is an absolute must read for everyone. It's thought provoking, smart, funny and so many other wonderful things in between. I loved it!

 

Camp YA Tag

via GIPHY

Welcome to my Camp YA Tag post! Pull up a sleeping bag, grab a s'more and find out all about my bookish camping recs.

Question One: What #CampYACup  team are you in?

Team Beaver for the win!

Question Two: What new release would you take away to camp?

Good Girls Die First by Kathryn Foxfield would be a fun choice for scaring the other campers.

Question Three: What book reminds you of your favourite camp snack?

I can imagine Lara Jean and Peter in To All the Boys I've Loved Before snuggling up with a sweet hot chocolate. 

Question Four: What book reminds you of your favourite camp activity?

My camp activity of choice is swimming, so I'd have to go for Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz, the story of two boys who connect at the local swimming pool. 

Question Five: What book moment would you like to recreate while at camp?

Ooh, that's a tough one! I think a bookish activity with The Paper and Hearts Society by Lucy Powrie would be fun.

Question Six: What book would you read around the campfire?

Harrow Lake by Kat Ellis would make a deliciously creepy campfire read!

Question Seven: What book character would you want on your #CampYACup team?

I think Karou from Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor would have my back.

Question Eight: What book character would be your rival at camp?

Serena from Gossip Girl would probably rub me up the wrong way!