The announcement of the winner of the Man Booker International Prize this week highlights again the growing importance of literary prizes in the international book world. Read more
It's a measure of the growing interest in short stories, amongst both writers and readers, that Costa launched its short story prize in 2012 and that the public is currently invited to read and listen to the shortlisted stories selected from over 1,000 entries on the Costa Book Awards website, and to take part in the public vote. Read more
This year's Booker result raises so many interesting issues that a longer report on Frankfurt, the Book Fair and other issues relating to international publishing will come next week. The links this week give a clue to the many themes that Paul Beatty's win with The Sellout has raised. Read more
Sometimes an author seems to step new-minted into bestsellerdom and, even rarer, literary acclaim. Lisa McInerney is such a writer and her winning of the Bailey Prize earlier in the month, followed by the Desmond Elliott Prize this week, marks a remarkable debut. Read more
Nick Clee asks in this week's Bookbrunch if you need to transcend a prize to win it, inspired by the Costa win by Frances Hardinge's children's book. Read more
This week's story was to have been on the rise in support for short stories, until, that is, Marlon James had his stunning Man Booker Prize win last night. Read more
The longlist for this year's Man Booker Prize is both diverse and international, with a wide range of different kinds of writers and a number of debuts. The longlist features three British writers, five US writers and one each from the Republic of Ireland, New Zealand, India, Nigeria and Jamaica. Read more
When John Spurling won the £25,000 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction recently with The Ten Thousand Things it was much more than a good win against a formidable shortlist, which included Martin Amis, Helen Dunmore, Adam Foulds and Kamila Shamsie. Read more
The growth of literary prizes of one kind and another seems unending, although it's a pity from the point of view of unpublished writers that so many of them are restricted to books which have come from traditional publishers. Read more
Eimear McBride's A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing is having an extraordinary impact. Now that it's won the new Bailey Women's Prize (successor to last year's Women's Fiction Prize and the Orange Prize), there seems to be no stopping the author. Read more
'The creative process is open to all. I don't believe in some magical creative gift, the exclusive possession of a few, nor need it concern big or sophisticated ideas. On the contrary, creativity may depend upon the recognition that our own thoughts and ideas are as valid as anyone else's; something which we knew as children, and which we were taught to unlearn. Read more
Open to unpublished and unagented writers from around the world.
No entry fee
Prize:
Prize of £3,000; publication with Tortoise Media; literary representation by RCW literary agent Laurence Laluyaux and other prizes
Fern Press and How to Academy have partnered on a new essay award worth £3,000, in association with Tortoise Media, for unpublished authors.
Fern Press was launched by Vintage last year, while the annual non-fiction essay prize is "for those working at the frontier of creativity and thought", organisers said. Read more
It's not a pretty word, 'blurb'; it smacks of nonsense, or slightly less than entirely honest marketing. Which is unfortunate, because a blurb is a useful and necessary thing; without it, your book is at risk of being a blank text, what you might call a closed book. Read more
'You want to write the twist so that it doesn't suddenly come out of nowhere. I tried to see a few things so that (the reader) thinks, of course! But it is hard to get that balance I think, of trying to get a twist in that is unguessable but not too "out there"... Writing in lockdown, 'So that was a bit of freedom in a way, I didn't have any expectations almost.
'You want to write the twist so that it doesn't suddenly come out of nowhere. I tried to see a few things so that (the reader) thinks, of course! But it is hard to get that balance I think, of trying to get a twist in that is unguessable but not too "out there". Read more
Waterstones managing director James Daunt said social media is reinforcing the reading of "proper" paper books among young people.
Mr Daunt, who is also chief executive of Barnes & Noble, said social media trends such as 'BookTok' on TikTok had been "hugely positive", as he was made a CBE for his services to publishing by the Princess Royal.
A new generation of romance novel consumers has moved a long-standing three-way conversation between reader, writer and publisher onto social media, industry insiders say, speeding up an already fast-moving segment of the publishing world.
When you are next visiting a bookstore, and find your way to the children's section, you might be forgiven for thinking that there is no longer such a thing as a children's author. Instead, you will be ambushed by piles of books blazoned with the names of actors, singers, comedians, DJs and people who generously exhibit themselves on social media.
A federal judge in California this week dismissed four of six claims made by authors in a now consolidated lawsuit alleging that Open AI infringes their copyrights. But the court gave the authors a month to amend their complaint, and the suit's core claim of direct infringement-which Open AI did not seek to dismiss-remains active.
For budding authors, the submissions process can be daunting. For anyone with little understanding of the publishing industry and how it works, it can be even more so. And for anyone whose writing sits outside of the established ideas of genre, style or content, it can be utterly baffling as to how to present that to an agent or publisher.
'No one was going to stop me from writing and no one had to really guide me towards science fiction. It was natural, really, that I would take that interest.'
Children's creativity
'The creative process is open to all. I don't believe in some magical creative gift, the exclusive possession of a few, nor need it concern big or sophisticated ideas. On the contrary, creativity may depend upon the recognition that our own thoughts and ideas are as valid as anyone else's; something which we knew as children, and which we were taught to unlearn. Read more