Comfortable shoes and a memorable top
Remember just before Christmas I was longlisted for the Comedy Women in Print short story prize? I'm on the shortlist! Which means my story You Can't Get There From Here will be in the anthology from Farrago books which is coming out in September. As well as the twelve shortlisted stories I think there will be a couple of stories from comedy writers you might have heard of, but as yet I don't know who. Rest assured I will keep you posted.
Of course a shortlist implies there will be a winner, and indeed there is an awards do next month in London. Anyone who's been around here a while (or knows me in the real world, offline) will realise the terror that simple phrase caused. I have spent my life avoiding London whenever possible, which is to say on all but half a dozen days of the last forty-odd years. It is a long train journey away and holds more people than should be possible. As far as I know, there are no sheep. Add to this an actual party - I watched clips of the last one, the amount of people and sequins was astonishing - and suddenly I had plans to become writer in residence on a remote Scottish island with immediate effect.
I bumped into a former member of Ilkley Writers yesterday - technically we are all former members now as it folded three years ago, but she was already a former member by then. I shared the excitement and then, because she knows me and therefore knows how unnaturally an event like this sits in my life, she gave me some advice: wear comfortable shoes and a memorable top. As she put it, 'they've already clocked your work, now they need to clock you'. Which one of my three check/plaid shirts is the most memorable? Or will I need to take her up on the offer to help me trawl the charity shops of Ilkley to find an alternative? Stay tuned to find out...
If you want to fortify me in the meantime you can always buy me a cuppa.
