This page includes winners and results of awards and competitions. More news is flagged from the home page. Choose any link on the left and read more news of writing under various headings.
Winners & results
enright wins booker lessing wins nobel go
irish crime writer scores thrice go
non-fiction for richard & judy go
máire napier wins writing club with last summer go
out stealing horses wins impac go
PJ O'Connor radio drama awards winners go
chimamanda ngozi adichie wins orange prize go
the saddest girl in the whole world wins go
firstimer scores with bad sex award go

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Enright wins Booker Lessing wins Nobel
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This year's Man Booker Prize for fiction was won by Anne Enright for her novel The Gathering.

The 45-year-old Dublin woman became the second Irish writer in three years to win the €70,000 award.

Judges described her novel, about three generations of an Irish family, as a powerful, uncomfortable and at times angry book.

The Gathering is Anne Enright's fourth novel. She published her first book in 1995.

She joins previous Irish Booker winners John Banville who won two years ago, Roddy Doyle in 1993 and Iris Murdoch who won in 1978.

Meanwhile, Doris Lessing was awarded Nobel Prize for Literature for her life’s work over a 57-year career.

Lessing was shortlisted three times for the Booker Prize with her novels Briefing for a Descent into Hell (1971), The Sirian Experiments (1981) and The Good Terrorist (1985).

She was nominated twice for the new Man Booker International Prize; once each in 2005 and 2007.

The Swedish Academy described Lessing as “that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny”.

For detail, see the websites:
Man Booker
Nobel
Enright Pic Joe O'Shaugnessy

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20oct 07 232
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Crime writer scores thrice
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Galway crime writer Ken Bruen received the best hardcover novel award for his book The Dramatist at this year’s Shamus awards; he also won a Barry award for best British novel for his book The Priest, and a Crime Spree magazine award for American Skin.

The Shamus Award is given by the Private Eye Writers of America to honor excellent work in the Private Eye genre

Bruen won a Shamus award, in 1994, for his novel The Guards, which introduced his private eye character, Jack Taylor. See our 2004 profile here

He has also been short-listed for the Edgar, Barry and Macavity awards for his books.

Also recognized in the 2007 Shamus awards was Dublin writer Declan Hughes who won Best First Novel for his debut: The Wrong Kind Of Blood. Hughes is an Irish theatre director and playwright.

For detail, see the website

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13oct 07 231
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Non-fiction for Richard & Judy
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The influential Richard & Judy afternoon television show is to accept non-fiction titles for consideration in the 2008 lists.

Kate Morton's novel The House at Riverton was announced as the winner of its annual Summer Read for 2007.

The book was the success of the considered titles with current sales of more than 315,000 according to Nielsen BookScan figures.

A public vote made the Morton work the winner.

Cactus TV, producers of both Richard & Judy and the TV broadcast of the Galaxy British Book Awards, which is organised by Publishing News, is accepting submissions by publishers for next year's Book Club

They have reminded publishers that non-fiction can be included, as can teenage crossover works.

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01 sept 07 225
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Out Stealing Horses wins Impac
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The Norwegian author Per Petterson was the winner of the 12th International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

Petterson won the award, the world's largest literary prize for a single work of fiction, for: Out Stealing Horses.

The novel was the only translated work on this year's shortlist and its translator, Anne Born, received €25,000 of the €100,000 prize for her work.

The novel was nominated by Deichmanske Bibliotek, Oslo, Norway and Solvberget KF-Stavanger Bibliotek og Kulturhus, Norway.

It was one of 138 novels nominated by 169 library systems in 49 countries for this year’s award.

siteLink
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16 june 07 214
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PJ O'Connor Radio Drama Awards winners
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Schoolteacher Ciarán Gray (left) was the winner for In the Real World in the RTÉ Radio 1 PJ O'Connor Radio Drama Awards. His prize was €3,000.

Comedian Kevin Gildea was second with Story. His prize was €2,000.

Actor, writer and director Garrett Keogh came third with Nancy. His prize was €1,000.

In addition to the prize money RTÉ Radio will professionally produce all of the winning radio plays and the winners will have the opportunity to take part in a writers' workshop.

The 30-minute radio plays will be broadcast, later this year, on RTÉ Radio.

The three winning authors were chosen from a shortlist of 12 which were chosen from the overall entry.

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16 june 07 214
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wins Orange Prize
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Two novels set in times of conflict were chosen as winners in the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction.

Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie won the twelfth women-only Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction with her second novel Half of a Yellow Sun.

The author was presented with a £30,000 prize and a limited edition bronze figurine called the Bessie.

At 29 years of age the writer is the youngest winner, and the first from Africa.

Half A Yellow Sun is set in the 1960s Biafran civil war, during which both Adichie's grandfathers died.

The Orange Broadband Award for New Writers was won by Karen Connelly with The Lizard Cage a novel set in Burma.

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16 june 07 214
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The Saddest Girl in the Whole World Wins
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Askaboutwriting readers were well represented amongst the winners of the first People’s College Short Story Competition in Dublin.

Dublin author Peter Sheridan presented first prize to Alyn Fenn for her story: The Saddest Girl in the Whole World.

Second was Evelyn Walsh for Taraxacum Officinale; third prize went to Geraldine Mills for Waiting for the Fall.

Runners-up were, in alphabetical order, Nuala Ní Choncúir for Jackson and Jerusalem; Wes Lee for Advent; Joe McKiernan for The Rain and the Roses; Marie McSweeney for How the Dust Settles; Cathy Sweeney for Secrets; Debbie Thomas for Beyond.

The stories will be published on the People’s College Website, subject to the authors’ agreement.

siteLink
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09 june 07 213
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Firstimer scores with bad sex award
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The Literary Review's Bad Sex in Fiction Award 2006 has gone to Iain Hollingshead (26) for passages contained within his first novel Twenty Something.

Once more, a reference to "bulging trousers" secured the honours for a writer.

Hollingshead is reported to have said he was delighted to be the youngest recipient of the award.

The award's mandate is "to draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel, and to discourage it".

Nonetheless, each year a fresh batch of candidates are nominated for the award

Previous winners include AA Gill, Sebastian Faulks and Tom Wolfe.

Meanwhile, in America, the 2006 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for bad writing went to Jim Guigli of California for the following:

Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his one small window falling on his super burrito when the door swung open to reveal a woman whose body said you've had your last burrito for a while, whose face said angels did exist, and whose eyes said she could make you dig your own grave and lick the shovel clean.
More entries may be read on the website:

siteLink
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02 december 06 186
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