Sweet Booker news for Salt

Many congrats to my publishers Salt, who are today celebrating their first ever Man Booker Prize longlisting with Alison Moore's forthcoming novel 'The Lighthouse'. This is a great boost for Salt and, I have to say, much deserved - Jen and Chris Hamilton-Emery are a great, hard-working couple, and nice to boot, so I'm thrilled for them. Alison's novel is up against the likes of Will Self, Nicola Barker and Michael Frayn and is out in a couple of months. You can pre-order it now via the Salt website here or via Amazon here. Congratulations, Alison, Nicholas Royle (Alison's agent) and Salt... and fingers crossed for the shortlist!

The Salt Prizes

The lovely people at Salt - publishers of my collection - have just launched three new literary awards called The Salt Prizes. The prizes aim to find the best new writing from around the world with categories available for best single short story, best piece of flash fiction and best poem. The winners will receive a cash prize as well as publication in a new anthology called The Salt Anthology of New Writing (other selected finalists will also be published in the book). The prizes launched on July 1st, with submissions being accepted until the closing date of October 31st. To find out more about the prizes and how to enter click here. This is a great opportunity for all writers no matter what stage of their career they're at, so why not give it a go? If you enter you'll also receive a voucher for 30% off any book in Salt's online shop - even more of an incentive. Good luck!

Edge Hill ceremony

Me with Jen Hamilton-Emery

Many congratulations to Sarah Hall, who won this year's Edge Hill Short Story Prize and Readers' Prize - read all about it here. I had a very nice evening at the ceremony, which took place at the Free Word Centre in London, where I met Sarah as well as fellow shortlistees Zoe Lambert, Rowena Macdonald and Tessa Hadley. It was also lovely to meet my publisher, Jen Hamilton-Emery of Salt, as well as a couple of the judges, Graham Mort and Rhiannon Evans, Edge Hill organisers Ailsa Cox and Carys Bray and chat with writers Elizabeth Baines (a fellow Salt writer who also wrote about the evening here) and Adam Marek, who has a new collection, 'The Stone Thrower', out soon with Comma Press. Sadly, there was no prize or prize money to take home but it was still very nice to have been shortlisted and to take part in the evening.