Debut Authors - It is Possible!

By co-incidence - my post also relates to the BBC

I hope it motivates you!

Debut Authors Longlisted For £10,000 Prize

Ten debut authors, including a former debt counsellor and a rock-band drummer, have been longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize, reports The BBC.

The £10,000 prize is awarded annually to a debut novelist from the UK.

Drummer Tim Thornton, who wrote The Alternative Hero, and former debt counsellor David Gaffney, for Never Never, have made this year’s longlist. Other authors include Nathalie Abi-Ezzi for A Girl Made of Dust; Poppy Adams for The Behaviour of Moths; Gaynor Arnold for Girl in a Blue Dress; Charles Elton for Mr Toppit; Edward Hogan for Blackmoor; Shona MacLean for The Redemption of Alexander Seaton; Anthony Quinn for The Rescue Man; and Anna Richards for Little Gods.

A shortlist of three books will be announced on the 26th of May. The winner of the Prize will be announced on the 24th of June at Fortnum & Mason, in London.

The prize was established in honour of publisher and literary agent Desmond Elliott, who died in August 2003. Author Nikita Lalwani won the inaugural prize in 2007 for Gifted, about a maths prodigy growing up in the 1980s.

So come on you aspiring authors - persist!

Rob.