MSt alumnus C.A. Blintkios’ novel The Smoke is Me, Burning is now available for pre-sale with Kernpunkt Press.
Jonathan McAloon, journalist for the BBC, The Guardian, and TLS, says of the book that it is “a sort of scrapbook of place magic. Almost told by ecology itself, The Smoke is Me, Burning has a reliable cyclical power that is often the mark of good art.”
More information here.
First prize in the inaugural Oxford-BNU Creative Writing Award was awarded to MSt student Megan Chester, for her work ‘Girl, Woman, River.’
Megan said, this ‘came as a wonderful surprise and a timely encouragement! I believe that there is a place for women in sports literature, and it is affirming to now know that others agree with me.’
High Commendations were also awarded to MSt students Emma Latham for ‘The Anatomical Venus,’ and Joanne Szilagyi for ‘An Invented Account of the Near-Death, Life and Death of Leslie Kong.’
Speaking collectively for the judges, chair Boyd Tonkin praised the competition shortlist for fiction which ‘roamed so freely around different genres, voices and registers.’ The authors, he said ‘were bold. They were inventive. They took risks. They bent rules. They showed that fiction, even short fiction, really is a garden where a hundred flowers can bloom.’
More information here.
MSt alumna Laura Theis has won first prize in the Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition 2021, in the category for poets who speak English as an Additional Language.
The prize, awarded by The Poetry Centre at Oxford Brookes, was judged this year by award-winning poet Will Harris. Laura’s was one of two top prizes of £1,000 in a competition that seeks to celebrate the great diversity of poetry being written in English all over the world.
An online awards ceremony will take place on Tuesday 7 December from 6.30-7.30pm GMT. To read Laura’s winning entry and to register for the ceremony, click here.
MSt tutor Harry Man has won The Stephen Spender Prize 2021. The Prize is an annual competition for poetry in translation, with categories for young people (14-and-under, 16-and-under, and 18-and-under) as well as an open category for adults.
For more information about the prize and The Stephen Spender Trust, and to read Harry’s entry and those of the runners up, click here.
Comedian, author and actor Helen Lederer launched the Comedy Women in Print Prize (CWIP) in 2019, to recognise, celebrate and encourage witty women authors.
With not only a sequel but a Netflix adaptation in the works, MSt alumna Jesse Satanto’s Dial A for Aunties has been recognised as the 2021 winner.
Of her win, the Independent says of Sutanto that, “her novel is about looking up into the branches of a family tree and finding strength as well as infuriating relatives. And if it pushes bright young women … to discover that they’re capable of more than they imagined, all the better.”
MSt alumna Rose Edwards has published her second novel with UCLan. The Ember Days follows Rose’s earlier novel, The Harm Tree, on 7 October.
“Exiled from a broken land, two friends try to escape the darkness they left behind them. Together again, Torny and Ebba reach Vellsberg, an outpost of the Southern Empire, hoping for a safe haven. Instead, they find families driven by ambition, a strange young woman who doesn’t seem to belong, and the bloody consequences of the Empire’s attempt to control the north. When Vellsberg is attacked, Torny and Ebba entrust themselves to Aisulu, a lone rider from beyond the eastern edges of the Southern Empire. Betrayed and pursued, they flee through a land succumbing to a strange plague. Invisible flames afflict the penitent, and whispers of a new Martyr and his False Disciple follow at their heels. Unwilling to face the things they’ve done to survive, Torny and Ebba find themselves torn apart again. After all, what hope is there, when once you have been monstrous? What peace can there be, when you have betrayed your own?”
More information here.
The Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop (ACWW) is pleased to announce Jinwoo Park winner of the 2020 Jim Wong-Chu Emerging Writers Award for his manuscript The Oxford Soju Club.
The judges say, “Park’s accomplished fiction manuscript is a riveting ‘tale of mystery and intrigue, C.I.A. agents, false identities, betrayal and love, each character committed to their own cause’.”
More details here.
“Moscow, 1987. As the Cold War begins to thaw, one of the great novelists of the twentieth century, Graham Greene, meets his old MI6 boss and notorious Soviet spy, Kim Philby. The two men raise their vodka glasses and talk about old times. How much did Greene know about Philby’s ways? Did the Red Spy betray his old friend as much as he did his own country? And who is listening in the room next door…?”
A Splinter Of Ice arrives at the Jermyn Theatre on 14-30 October after an acclaimed national tour. Ben Brown‘s political drama is directed by Alan Strachan with Alastair Whatley, and stars Olivier Award winner Oliver Ford Davies (Game of Thrones) as Graham Greene, Stephen Boxer (The Crown) as Kim Philby, with Karen Ascoe as his wife Rufa.
A Co-production with Original Theatre. More details here.
Described by the publisher as, ‘an inspirational manifesto for re-igniting our passion for life and our inner drive,’ MSt Alumnus Sharath Jeevan’s new book is written to help the reader achieve more lasting fulfilment.
Published on 2 September 2021, Intrinsic ‘shows us how we can fall back in love with our lives, and create the lives we want.’
For more information about the author visit his website.
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