May 2017 brought good news. A work-in-progress that has filled my mind for several years has been shortlisted for the Inaugural Spread The Word Life Writing Prize in association with Goldsmiths Writers’ Centre. The announcement was made at a special event at Goldsmiths in London. The links will take you through to a short extract.

Selected for the shortlist from 700 entries, ‘The Missing Sixth’ is part of a longer work set in England and Ireland, exploring my mother’s short life, and it seems to have captured the imagination of judges Blake Morrison, Dr Katy Massey, and Margaret Stead.

“The theme is intriguing and original. The prose aspires to poetry at times. A powerful piece,” said Morrison.

The news follows on the heels of another shortlisting for a longer poetry piece I am completing on the Coventry ring road - the Listowel Writers’ Week Poetry Collection competition in Ireland, judged this year by Thomas McCarthy. I look forward to sharing the poem with you soon.

I would like to thank the Word Factory – and Zoe Gilbert’s critiquing group. Reading an extract aloud to my Word Factory friends inspired me to enter the life writing prize and we now have an amazing network of writers sharing work with each other.