MSt tutor Helen Mort has won the 2018 Andrew Waterhouse Award for Poetry. “Established in 2000 by New Writing North, the Northern Writers’ Awards supports work-in-progress by new, emerging and established writers across the North of England.”
More information about all of this year’s winners and about Helen.
MSt alumna Stephanie Scott’s novel “The Sentence” is to be published in 2019 by Weidenfeld & Nicholson in June 2019 (U.K. & Commonwealth) and by Doubleday in Spring 2020 (USA &Canada).
Read about it at The Literary Consultancy, The Bookseller (” ‘touching’ Japanese) debut”). The novel was the runner up for the Bridport First Novel Prize in 2017.
From the Weidenfeld & Nicholson press release:
“W&N is delighted to announce the acquisition of a stunning debut by Stephanie Scott a stunning debut by Stephanie Scott, THE SENTENCE.
Within the Tokyo underworld there is an industry which exists to break up marriages. It is known today as wakaresaseya. This business is composed of agents who, for a fee, can be hired by one spouse to seduce the other and provide grounds for divorce on favourable terms. The Sentence tells the story of Takashi Nakamura, a wakaresaseya agent, who is hired by a man to seduce his wife, Rina. But then Rina and Takashi fall in love. So why, at the beginning of the story, is Takashi in prison, accused of Rina’s murder? Now, twenty years later, Rina’s daughter Sumiko decides to find out what really happened.
Stephanie Scott is a graduate of the Faber Academy and was awarded a Distinction for her M.St in Creative Writing at Oxford, as well as a BAJS Toshiba Studentship for her anthropological work on Japan. She has won the AM Heath Prize, the Arvon Jerwood Prize for Literature, the National Centre for Writing Inspires Award and was runner-up for 2017’s Bridport First Novel Award for an early draft of The Sentence.
W&N Publisher, Kirsty Dunseath, bought UK and Commonwealth rights from Antony Harwood, with publication set for early summer 2019. A six-figure deal for US rights has been signed with Doubleday, French rights have been acquired by J.C. Lattes and other translation rights deals are currently being negotiated.
Kirsty Dunseath said: ‘This is a beautiful, touching love story as well as an exploration of human frailty and the tensions between family duty and personal freedom. Stephanie’s writing is exquisite and this story unfurls in unexpected ways as Sumiko tries to make sense of her mother’s past. We are absolutely delighted to welcome Stephanie to W&N”
MSt tutor Anna Beer is appearing in BBC Four’s Unsung Heroines: the Lost World of Female Composers, 22nd June 2018 at 8 pm (UK)
From the BCC Four announcement:
“Danielle de Niese explores the lives and works of five female composers – from the Middle Ages to the late 20th century – who were famous in their lifetimes, but whose work was then forgotten.
Western classical music has traditionally been seen as a procession of male geniuses, but the truth is that women have always composed. Hildegard of Bingen, Francesca Caccini, Clara Schumann, Florence Price and Elizabeth Maconchy – all these women battled to fulfil their ambitions and overcome the obstacles that society placed in their way. They then disappeared into obscurity, and only some have found recognition again.“
From the announcement:
“Using the theme of ‘Otherness and Hospitality’, the TellYours 2018 storytellers will showcase their tales after completing an intense six month professional development programme run by Filotico Arts in collaboration with world-leading storyteller Daniel Morden, award-winning theatre director Jennifer Tang and arts producers Renaissance One and Counterpoint Arts.”
The showcase will take place at Canada Water Theatre on June 19 and Battersea Arts Centre – BAC on June 28, 2018.
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