What’s Past is Prologue
It’s nearly two weeks since this wonderful couple of days, but better late than never to tell about it and say thank you, right? My novel Stateless was on the shortlist for this award, along with eleven other books by fabulous authors. https://prism.librarymanagementcloud.co.uk/lancashire/lists/defac38c-668d-419d-9d9e-75ae68277fbf
The un-put-downable thriller, The Midnight Game, was a shoo-in for the prize in my opinion, and it came as no surprise to me that its author Cynthia Murphy was the winner of this brilliant locally sponsored award for the third year in a row. Unfortunately, Cynthia came down with COVID at the last minute and wasn’t able to be there to accept the prize or to enjoy the festivities.
BUT I WAS! All of it run by the Lancashire County Council and sponsored by the University of Central Lancashire, the ceremony takes place in Preston, England, and is attended by some 300 student readers representing some 25 schools (the numbers vary year to year). The shortlist and winners are chosen entirely by the young readers who read and weed through submissions from publishers throughout the year. Frankly, as an author who leans literary, I am incredibly flattered and honoured that my target audience chose this for their shortlist!
I was part of a small core group of five authors who met in Preston the night before the event and were treated to a generous welcome meal by Tom Brown and Robin Crawshaw of Lancaster County Council Cultural Services. We were Bea Fitzgerald, Sarah Underwood, Sue Wallman, Kate Weston, and me, a good turnout for the women writers. It was brilliant to be able to have some time to discuss publishing, writing, and politics (we met on the day of the UK’s general election and our event was held on the day of the results), but the real thrill came when we got to line up on a panel in front of the 300-strong readers. After talking about ourselves and our books, we got to field questions for nearly an hour. When we were told “We only have time for one or two more questions,” we cranked up our efficiency into a sort of rapid-fire round and answered at least a dozen more before everybody had to adjourn for lunch.
Lunch was with the sponsors and Lancashire County Councillor Alf Clempson, who regaled the table with the story of a 105-year-old veteran who’d fought in Italy in World War II and learned to fly in later life. Apparently he’d done quite a bit of running away in Italy, not from the enemy, but from angry farmers’ wives whose daughters he’d been consorting with!
The final part of the event was a huge book signing, which was also brilliant. At least five girls came up to me afterwards to tell me they were in the Air Cadets. One kid said that Stateless was her favourite book and that she’d read it three times. One kid asked me to write about Polish pilots, “because my country doesn’t get enough representation,” and it was a pleasure to be able to point her to White Eagles and say, “AS A MATTER OF FACT, I HAVE WRITTEN A BOOK ABOUT A POLISH PILOT.” She was so excited and grateful and it made me so happy!
But the absolute highlight of the entire event for me was the boy who asked, in the signing queue, “Who is the most fascinating person you ever met?” And I thought for a minute and came up with my high school French teacher and Holocaust survivor, Annette Berman. I started to tell him about Madame, and all the other kids standing in the signing queue started gathering round to listen, and one of their teachers came over to find out what the attraction was, and she started listening, too. Later, Robin told me he’d wondered what was going on!
(Here is Madame’s obituary: https://obits.pennlive.com/us/obituaries/pennlive/name/annette-berman-obituary?id=15076393 – and here is her oral history in the US Holocaust Memorial Museum: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn510777 )
I’m so glad Stateless was on the shortlist – I told them I’d do it again even if I didn’t have a book to promote! It’s a fabulous initiative and it’s been running for 38 years.