{"id":676,"date":"2014-12-18T11:27:36","date_gmt":"2014-12-18T11:27:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/?p=676"},"modified":"2019-01-24T13:09:53","modified_gmt":"2019-01-24T13:09:53","slug":"mst-tutor-alice-jolly-winner-of-the-vs-pritchett-prize-2014-reflects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/?p=676","title":{"rendered":"MSt tutor Alice Jolly, winner of the VS Pritchett Prize 2014, reflects on winning"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"https:\/\/www.conted.ox.ac.uk\/courses\/infosysfiles\/_Tutors\/Jolly_Alice_4713.jpg\"<\/a><\/strong>T<\/strong>wo Ways To Win A Prize <\/strong>
\nAlice Jolly<\/strong><\/p>\n

Just recently I won the V. S. Pritchett Memorial Prize<\/a> which is awarded by the Royal Society of Literature for the best unpublished short story of the year. I have never won a prestigious prize of this kind before and so I was thrilled.<\/p>\n

The win was particularly positive for me because only a few weeks before, as I filled out yet another on-line short story competition form, I had been grumbling to myself about the state of my literary career.<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019m forty seven years old and I\u2019ve been doing this for twenty years. I don\u2019t want to have to keep sending my work out. By now people should be asking me for it.\u2019 But despite the grumbling, I did send that story off.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the first important piece of advice I would give to anyone who wants to win a prize. Send your work out. This may sound obvious. It is obvious \u2013 but it is also important.<\/p>\n

The truth is that many of us write at the level when we will often make it to the long list of forty short stories \/ poems \/ plays. After that, whether we win or not is a matter of luck.<\/p>\n

So please don\u2019t listen to that voice in your head telling you it is all a waste of time. Submit your story \/ poem \/ play to every competition and call for submissions that you can. You will get lucky some time.<\/p>\n

My second piece of advice is much more concrete and relates specifically to my winning short story which is called Ray The Rottweiler. Inevitably as soon as I got the call telling me that I had won I asked myself \u2013 why that story?<\/p>\n

Of course, I don\u2019t know. As I said, statistics and luck are key ingredients. But I did suddenly think of the very talented director who worked on my most recent play. He has a saying which is \u2013 big character always succeeds.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s worth thinking about. At the centre of my winning story is an eccentric, difficult, puzzling character. Think about novels, stories or plays that you love. Are they inhabited by big characters? Are the characters in your own writing big enough?<\/p>\n

As for me, I am hard at work on Derek The Dachshund and Paddy The Poodle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two Ways To Win A Prize Alice Jolly Just recently I won the V. S. Pritchett Memorial Prize which is awarded by the Royal Society of Literature for the best unpublished short story of the year. I have never won a prestigious prize of this kind before and so I was thrilled. The win was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-publications","category-tutor_news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p40Qhf-aU","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":659,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/?p=659","url_meta":{"origin":676,"position":0},"title":"MSt Tutor Alice Jolly wins 2014 VS Pritchett prize","author":"MSt Creative Writing","date":"November 14, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"MST Tutor Alice Jolly won the 2014 VS Pritchett prize for her short story \"Ray the Rottweiler\". The prize is awarded by the Royal Society of Literature for the best unpublished story of the year. This year's judges were Dame\u00a0Margaret Drabble,\u00a0Tibor Fischer\u00a0and\u00a0Helen Oyeyemi. The story will also be published in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "MSt News"","block_context":{"text":"MSt News","link":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/?cat=4"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":673,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/?p=673","url_meta":{"origin":676,"position":1},"title":"Kellogg College Creative Writing Seminar Series: Alice Jolly, 5th February 2015","author":"MSt Creative Writing","date":"January 26, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"\u201cNarrative and Anti-Narrative in the Short Story and the Novel\u201d with MSt tutor Alice Jolly Mawby Room, Kellogg College, 62 Banbury Road 5 pm (refreshments) for 5.30 pm All are welcome and no bookings are necessary Alice Jolly has published two novels with Simon and Schuster and four of her\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Events"","block_context":{"text":"Events","link":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1078,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/?p=1078","url_meta":{"origin":676,"position":2},"title":"MSt tutor Alice Jolly awarded 2016 PEN Ackerley Prize","author":"MSt Creative Writing","date":"July 13, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"(image from PEN Ackerely website) MSt tutor Alice Jolly's Dead Babies and Seaside Towns (Unbound, 2015) has been awarded the 2016 PEN Ackerley Prize. \"Alice Jolly has this evening been announced as the winner of the 2016 PEN Ackerley Prize for her memoir Dead Babies and Seaside Towns (Unbound).\u00a0 The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "MSt News"","block_context":{"text":"MSt News","link":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/?cat=4"},"img":{"alt_text":"Screen Shot 2016-07-13 at 12.18.41","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Screen-Shot-2016-07-13-at-12.18.41-300x154.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1713,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/?p=1713","url_meta":{"origin":676,"position":3},"title":"MSt tutor Alice Jolly’s “Mary Sate, Imbecile” shortlisted for the 2019 Rathbone Folio Prize","author":"MSt Creative Writing","date":"April 5, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"MSt tutor Alice Jolly's Mary Sate, Imbecile (Unbound) has been short listed for the 2019 Rathbone Folio Prize. The winner will be announced on 20 May 2019, at the British Library. Read more about the Prize and the books shortlisted on the Rathbones Folio website (link below). https:\/\/www.rathbonesfolioprize.com\/slider\/the-rathbones-folio-prize-2019-shortlist\/","rel":"","context":"In "MSt News"","block_context":{"text":"MSt News","link":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/?cat=4"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Screenshot-2019-04-05-at-09.51.20.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":451,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/?p=451","url_meta":{"origin":676,"position":4},"title":"14th V.S. Pritchett Memorial Prize for best unpublished short story","author":"MSt Creative Writing","date":"April 15, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"First prize\u00a0 \u00a31,000, and the story published in Prospect online and in the RSL Review. \"In addition to this, there will be an opportunity to appear at an RSL event with established short story writers in autumn 2013 (the 2012 winner read at an event with short-story writer, novelist, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Events"","block_context":{"text":"Events","link":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1051,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/?p=1051","url_meta":{"origin":676,"position":5},"title":"MSt tutor Alice Jolly’s “Dead Babies and Seaside Towns” shortlisted for the Pen \/ Ackerley Prize 2016","author":"MSt Creative Writing","date":"June 24, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"MSt tutor Alice Jolly's Dead Babies and Seaside Towns\u00a0 has been shortlisted for the Pen \/ Ackerley Prize 2016","rel":"","context":"In "MSt News"","block_context":{"text":"MSt News","link":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/?cat=4"},"img":{"alt_text":"Screen Shot 2016-06-24 at 15.08.59","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Screen-Shot-2016-06-24-at-15.08.59.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=676"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":689,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676\/revisions\/689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}