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The Costa Book Awards and Readers

“Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another’s skin, another’s voice, another’s soul.” — Joyce Carol Oates

I’m going to do a Hilary Mantel (what a fantastic role model!) here and I’m not going to apologise for posting a second time about the Costa Awards. This time I’d like to say something about readers.

All writers want to be read. As writers we are nothing without readers and the power of this has really come home to me in winning the Costa Short Story Award. I won because people read my story and voted for it and it would seem, from the things people have said and all the messages I’ve had since, that Millie and Bird really resonated with its readers. Sally Hyman said ‘I read the short stories for our book club and I enjoyed your story the most because you created and drew the reader into a real world and I cared about the people in it…’ There is no greater compliment than one that comes from a reader, a complete stranger who has found your work. I treasure such comments. I remember them. I remember that a reader once told me that reading The Sweet Track had changed her life.

At the Costa Awards I met the lovely Louise the very first reader in the whole process who had picked out my story and sent it winging its way to the longlist. It really did feel as if it was all about the reader.

Thank you Costa; above all thank you for giving writers like me the opportunity to be read.

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3 comments

  1. Three great things about the Costa inaugural short story competition:

    1.It was judged anonymously with good protocols set in place to ensure that it stayed anonymous until the final outcome,. This is a great thing, that the stories – not the hype – are judged by real readers out there.who are curious and interested by the prose on the page and the story itself, not by the personality and reputation of a named writer.
    2 Through this process Millie and Bird was adjudged the winner.on its own merits.
    3 You wrote it , I always knew your writing was first class. Now thousands more people know. Bodes well for the future,

    1. Thank you Wendy for this endorsement of the Costa – I agree its great that writers can be judged anonymously and by the real readers! Readers are what count – I can only hope one day to have 90,000 library readers in one year – as you have!

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