Genre: Fiction

Eleanor Catton, 28, Becomes Youngest Booker Prize Winner

G&A: The Contest Blog
10.16.13

Eleanor Catton was awarded the Man Booker Prize on Tuesday for The Luminaries, an epic novel set in nineteenth-century New Zealand. Catton, twenty-eight, is the youngest person to ever receive the prize.

Born in Canada and raised in Christchurch, New Zealand, Catton began writing the book, her second novel, at age twenty-five. The previous youngest recipient of the award, Ben Okri, won the prize in 1991 at age thirty-two. At 848 pages, The Luminaries (published by Granta in Britain and Little, Brown in the U.S.) is also the longest novel to win the award. Catton is only the second person from New Zealand to win.

Eleanor CattonThe prize was announced at a ceremony in London’s Guildhall. Chair of judges Robert Macfarlane called the book a “dazzling work, luminous, vast” with an “extraordinarily gripping” narrative. “The Luminaries is a novel you pan, as if for gold, and the returns are huge,” Macfarlane said. “Maturity is evident in every sentence, in the rhythms and balances. It is a novel of astonishing control.”
 
Catton beat out five other finalists for the prize: We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo; Harvest by Jim Crace; A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki; The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri; and The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin. According British betting site Ladbrokes, Crace was the favorite to win. Catton will receive £50,000, or about $80,000.

It’s been a few good years for historical fiction, Hilary Mantel having won the prize both in 2009 and 2012 for Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies, respectively, the first two books in her Thomas Cromwell trilogy.

Britain’s most prestigious literary prize, the Booker has been awarded annually for forty-five years to a novelist from the United Kingdom, Ireland, or the British Commonwealth. Last month, however, the Booker Prize Foundation announced that, beginning in 2014, the prize would be open to all novels written in English and published in the United Kingdom, regardless of the author’s nationality.

In total, 151 books were nominated for this year’s prize. The winner is selected by the judging panel on the day of the ceremony.

Meal Time

The Time Is Now
10.16.13

Our characters reveal themselves through their actions—not only in dramatic scenes that involve death, injury, or heartache, but in small, subtle ways too. Show how a character in your fiction eats. Is the character’s demeanor ravenous and paranoid or slow and sophisticated? How your character eats, appreciates, and relates to food reveals much about his or her upbringing, emotional state, and intellectual disposition.

Alice Munro Wins Nobel Prize

G&A: The Contest Blog
10.10.13

Canadian short story writer Alice Munro has won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature. Munro, eighty-two, is the first Canadian writer and only the thirteenth woman to win the award.

Peter Englund, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, made the announcement today in Stockholm, calling Munro a "master of the contemporary short story." Munro, who lives in Clinton, Ontario, and whose work often deals with small-town life and the complicated relationships between women and men, announced earlier this year that she may be retiring. Her fourteenth story collection, Dear Life, was published in 2012 by Knopf.

One of the most prestigious prizes in the world, the Nobel Prize is given to a writer for a body of work, rather than a single book. The winner receives eight million Swedish kronor, or approximately $1.2 million.

Recent winners of the prize include Chinese writer Mo Yan, in 2012; Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer, in 2011; Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, in 2010; and the Romanian-born German novelist and essayist Herta Müller, in 2009.

Pet Fiction

The Time Is Now
10.9.13

Pets are playing an increasingly important role in the lives of many people and families in our society. Pets offer companionship, unconditional love, or simply represent a welcome living force in our imperfect homes. Write a scene where an animal or pet stops a character from feeling lonely, stressed, or on the brink of madness. Explore the complex, but very deep and real, relationship between animals and people.

Man Booker Prize Announces Global Expansion

G&A: The Contest Blog
10.8.13

Starting next year, the London–based Man Booker Prize—whose 2013 winner will be announced next week—will be expanded to include all books written in English.

The prize has been given since 1969 for books of fiction written by a citizen of the United Kingdom, the British Commonwealth, or the Republic of Ireland. The expansion will make all books written and published in English, by authors from any country, eligible for nomination.

While the announcement, made last week on the Man Booker website by Foundation Chair Jonathan Taylor, has drawn a flurry of mixed reviews, the Foundation insists that by expanding the prize it will be “embracing the freedom of English in its versatility, in its vigour, in its vitality and in its glory wherever it may be. We are abandoning the constraints of geography and national boundaries.”

Eligible books must still be published in the United Kingdom, and UK publishers must submit titles for consideration. A few other submission guidelines have also changed.
 
The 2013 shortlist, which was announced in September, was chosen from a longlist released in July. The winner, who will be announced on October 15, will receive 50,000 British pounds, or approximately $75,000.

The Man Booker Foundation has also partnered with Apple to host a series of free podcasts featuring readings and interviews with the shortlisted authors.

Rona Jaffe Award Winners Announced

G&A: The Contest Blog
10.3.13

The Rona Jaffe Foundation has announced the winners of its nineteenth annual Writers’ Awards, given to emerging women writers. The program offers grants of $30,000 each to writers of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction.

The 2013 winners are fiction and nonfiction writer Tiffany Briere of San Diego, California; fiction writer Ashlee Crews of Durham, North Carolina; nonfiction writer Kristin Dombek of Brooklyn, New York; poet Margaree Little of Tuscon, Arizona; fiction writer Kirstin Valdez Quade of Palo Alto, California; and nonfiction writer Jill Sisson Quinn of Scandinavia, Wisconsin. Visit the website for the winners’ complete bios.

The Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Awards program was established by author Rona Jaffe in 1995 “in recognition of the special contributions women writers make to our culture and society.” Since the program began, the Foundation has awarded more than $1.5 million to women writers in the early stages of their careers. Past recipients have included Rachel Aviv, Eula Biss, Lan Samantha Chang, Rivka Galchen, ZZ Packer, Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, and Tracy K. Smith. In addition to providing time to write, the program also offers assistance for things like research, travel, and child care. Nominations for the annual awards are solicited by the Foundation from writers, editors, critics, and other literary professionals.

Rona Jaffe (1931–2005) was the author of sixteen books, including Class Reunion, Family Secrets, The Road Taken, and The Room-Mating Season. Her 1958 bestselling debut novel, The Best of Everything, was reissued by Penguin in 2005.

Listen to a podcast of the 2013 winners reading from their work during a recent awards ceremony at New York University.

Express Lane Character Check

The Time Is Now
10.2.13

Life is stressful. How our characters handle—or don’t handle—stress reveals much about them. Write a scene in which your protagonist is stressed due to a death in the family, a financial crisis, or an unraveling relationship. Place your protagonist in a grocery store at the express lane for customers with fewer than 10 items. Have a lady, pushing a cart full of groceries, jump in line just before your protagonist. “Sorry, but I’m in a hurry,” she explains. Write six hundred words.

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