Mrs M & I have just come back from the Dylan Thomas Prize dinner in Swansea. It was great to see such a glitzy occasion devoted to books and writing and in particular young writers.
The winner of the £30,000 prize was, as you may know by now, Maggie Shipstead for her amazing novel ‘Seating Arrangements.’ If you haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend it. Unless you’re planning a wedding, in which case you may want to leave it till afterwards.
It was great to meet Maggie too and chat to her and two of the other short listed writers, DW Wilson and Andrea Eames.
As you know, I chose Andrea’s ‘The White Shadow’ as my fantasy winner and, without detracting from Maggie’s success, I stand by that choice: it’s one of the best novels I’ve ever read and I was pleased to be able to talk to her and chuffed that she’d read my review.
In fact all three of the writers I spoke to had read my blog posts which was a bit scary but very gratifying.
There was another highlight too. I was sitting next to a poet, Rhian Edwards, who provided what she called ‘intercourse entertainment’ (between courses of food naturally: what did you think?)
She dazzled us with three astonishing, funny and accomplished poems that won rapturous applause. Good company too.
Just a couple of ropey pictures I’m afraid. The one at the top is of all the authors on stage and this, if you can make it out, is when Maggie received her prize.
