Genre: Fiction

The Man Booker Prize Foundation announced the longlist today for the 2014 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. This year marks the first time in the prize's history that any author, irrespective of nationality, with work written originally in English and published in the United Kingdom, is eligible to win.

The longlist includes Howard Jacobson, a former Man Booker winner, for J (Jonathan Cape); two previously shortlisted authors, Ali Smith for How to Be Both (Hamish Hamilton) and David Mitchell for The Bone Clocks (Sceptre); and the Anglo-Indian writer Neel Mukherjee for The Lives of Others (Chatto & Windus). The American writers making the longlist are Richard Powers for Orfeo (Atlantic Books), Siri Hustvedt for The Blazing World (Sceptre), Joshua Ferris for To Rise Again at a Decent Hour (Viking), and Karen Joy Fowler for We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (Serpent’s Tail). British writers Paul Kingsnorth for The Wake (Unbound) and David Nicholls for Us (Hodder & Stoughton); Tasmanian writer Richard Flanagan for The Narrow Road to the Deep North (Chatto & Windus); and Irish writers Joseph O’Neill for The Dog (Fourth Estate) and Niall Williams for History of the Rain (Bloomsbury) round out the list.

The panel of six judges is chaired by British philosopher A. C. Grayling. The decision to expand the prize this year has been controversial; previously the prize was restricted to authors from Britain and other countries in the Commonwealth, as well as Ireland and Zimbabwe. Last year, Eleanor Catton, a novelist from New Zealand, won the prize for her 832-page novel The Luminaries. At 28, Catton was the youngest recipient of the award in its forty-five-year history. 

The shortlist will be announced on September 9, and the winner—who will receive a £50,000 (approximately $85,177) purse—will be announced on October 14.

Photos: Fowler (left), Ferris (right)

We've all heard the advice "write what you know," which encourages us to write characters like ourselves or people who are close to us. This week, write from the perspective of a character that is your complete opposite. First, make a list of all the qualities you identify with yourself, and then make a list of qualities on the other end of the spectrum. For example, if you are a woman who lives in the country, write from the point of view of a man who lives in the city. Try to avoid using stereotypes to describe this character's actions or ideas, and instead try to embody this character—climb inside his or her head and live there a while.

Do you live in a tourist town, or a town that sees a surge in population during a particular season? Maybe there is a town you visit when you're on vacation. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live there year-round? This week, write a story set in a tourist town, trying to write from the perspective of a local. How does this character, or the locals in general, feel about the tourists? Is this really a friendly town, or does it just seem friendly to vacationers?

Even if you're not a big fan of the Transformers movies, consider the basic idea of everyday machines transforming into some sort of robot or creature. This week, write a story in which one of your characters discovers a household appliance that has transformed itself into something else. For example, when making her morning toast, your character notices the toaster has morphed into a small flying machine, and is stuck in a tree in the backyard. Write about how your character feels upon discovering this machine has a mind of its own, and how her relationship with the machine in question, as well as the world around her, is altered after this experience.