Well, I promised you an update with either a happy or a sad face, and I am afraid that this time it is sad. Never mind, I will revel in my shortlisting.
The story that won is absolutely beautiful and very worthy of the prize. If you haven’t checked out the stories yet, you can find the winner here.
My story WhatsAppening, along with the other shortlisted titles can be read here. Well done to my friend Frances, who spotted which one was mine.
In amongst virtual bundles of academic editing, I have also been enjoying the Wigtown Book Festival. I have mainly been sticking with non-fiction – Alastair Campbell, Anne Applebaum, Helena Kennedy (who went to the same school as me), Neil McGregor and Richard Holloway. There was a theme of dissent and the how to cope in an every changing world, which ran through a lot of the discussions.
I was very taken by Richard Holloway who said, ‘no one can be perfect, but we can all improve.’ He also told a story about a man on a beach, throwing stranded starfish back into the sea. When a passer-by ridiculed him by saying there were too many on the beach for him to make any difference, he picked up another starfish, threw it into the water and said, ‘I’ve made a difference to that one.’
Jane Goodall said something similar to Trevor Noah on the Daily Show. ‘If we clean the stream next to us, we have a clean stream to run into the river. If everyone cleans the stream next to them, we have a clean river.’ In other words, never give up hope, but act and do.
I did catch Maggie O’Farrell’s talk as well on her new novel Hamnet. I am twitching to buy lots of books from the festival bookshop, but will wait until the end of the festival and then splurge.
I have wanted to go to Wigtown during the festival for years (I have been a couple of times and been enchanted by it), so I was happy to spend some time and money (events are free, but donations encouraged) to see some of the brilliant authors who were ‘there’.
VLF (Virtual Literary Festival) just sent me an email with lots of other festivals being broadcast over the next few months. Check them out.
Tags: Zealous