Skip to main content

MS: Five women dominate the six-strong Dylan Thomas Prize shortlist

The Mslexia Blog


Good work Caroline Bird! As those who read my earlier posts will surely know, I am a big fan of this young, imaginative British poet who has previously been shortlisted for this very prize, and she is still ONLY 23. Gosh! Watering Can is fab, mind. I’ve reread it only this week. There are many poems that I like inside the covers. Poems like ‘Last Tuesday’, ‘Wedding Guest’, ‘Closet Affair’ and ‘Blame the Poodle’. Poems like ‘Road-Signs’:
You were travelling a grey motorway.
You had your baby in your lap
with enormous green eyes
and a scarily large head.
You parked the car in a lay-by, sat on the roof,
held her high like a trophy,
joked, ‘One day all of this will be yours
.’
I am also looking forward to ploughing through the other titles on the shortlist before December’s winner is announced.
Emily M
Emily Mackie
The ‘most diverse shortlist to date’ for the £30,000 Prize, which is now awarded annually to talented writers under the age of 30, has revealed a six-strong shortlist from a longlist of 16, five of whom are female. The writers hail from five continents, and the six works consist of two poetry collections and four novels, covering topics from war and family to love and betrayal. Joining Caroline Bird in the running will be Somalian writer Nadifa MohamedThe Rehearsal author Eleanor Catton, American poet Elyse Fenton; andEmily Mackie, who currently resides in Bristol. Debut novelist Karan Mahajan completes the list with Family Planning.
Dylan Thomas Prize founder and member of the judging panel, Professor Peter Stead, commented: ‘As a panel, we were both pleased and surprised to see that the final six were predominately female writers, as there was a fairly even spread on the longlist. Regardless of gender, this is an outstanding shortlist that, in my opinion, rivals that of the world’s best-known literary awards.’
The winner will be announced at the final awards ceremony at Brangwyn Hall in Swansea, Wales on December 1st, 2010.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

WAR Best Poetry Collections of 2023: Hymnal

  Thrilled to see Julia Bell's Hymnal on WAR's ' Best Poetry Collections of 2023 ' list! Late in the 1960s, before Bell was born, her father and mother visited Aberaeron, a small fishing town on the west coast of Wales. Here, her father heard a voice – which he knew to be God – directing him to minister to the Welsh. Six months after she was born in the early 1970s, they moved to Aberaeron where he took up his first curateship. Over the next eighteen years they would move to various parishes within a forty mile radius: first to Llangeler a predominantly Welsh-speaking parish in the Teifi valley, then back to Aberaeron where Bell’s father became vicar, and then to a larger and more Evangelical church in Aberystwyth. This unique memoir in verse offers a series of snapshots about religion and sexuality. In verse because it’s how Bell remembers: snapshots in words strung along a line, which somehow constitute a life. Snapshots of another time from now, but from a time whic

The Lonely Crowd: Susie Wild On Writing ‘Looks Like Rain’

' It began with the opening image. I usually start stories or poems with an image, a line or a character. I’m a visual learner, an introvert observer of others. Knowing I’d agreed to write this piece I’ve been racking my brain and notebooks for the seed that planted the first page.' Read the article in full on The Lonely Crowd  website. My story 'Looks Like Rain' is in the new Spring 2016 Issue, out now. I'll be reading it at the Little Man launch in Cardiff on 20th May.

Some Snaps from The Forecourt Fringe and The Laugharne Weekend

Well that was a Laugharne Weekend! Thanks to the lovely  Meinir Min Evans  for having us at the beautiful draped The Forecourt Fringe on Saturday and Sunday. Such a pretty stage to perform on. Thanks to my co-host, driver and star poet  Natalie Ann Holborow  and to my wonderful readers including  Oliver James Lomax ,  Mari Ellis ,  Rhys Owain Williams , Tyler Keevil,  Sion Tomos Owen ,  Anne Pelleschi  and  Lee Prosser .  Beautiful music from Sion and the man forever to be known as Tyler's (no good) brother. Thanks to Emyr Young for the photo studio Parthian is 25 shoot, and to  Jeff Towns  and  Huw Davie  for the book bus gig and gifts and to all of you who bought our books / us drinks and entertained/charmed/impressed us over the weekend.  I also really enjoyed seeing other acts at The Laugharne Weeke nd as well including  Euros Childs (favourite gig of the year so far), Joe Dunthorne, Garth Cartwright and Travis Elborough and having a really good dance to Eugene Defrei