Lists, Acceptances and Full Requests

What a crazy and incredible rollercoaster the last 8 weeks have been!

In that time, I’ve been fortunate enough to:

• Longlist for the Bedford Prize

• Longlist for the Hope Prize

• Longlist for the Fractured Lit Flash Prize

• Longlist for the Fish Prize

• Be shortlisted for the New Writers Flash Fiction Competition

• Have two stories accepted for publication

• Receive two full manuscript requests for my novel Summer Orphans

• And have Summer Orphans place in the top 10% of the Exeter Novel Prize

Writing can so often feel like working away in the dark. You can spend months (sometimes years) – writing, rewriting, doubting, deleting, submitting, waiting, and trying again – waiting for something, anything!

Most of the time, all you hear back is silence, or the occasional rejection. It can be very hard to know whether you are improving, or whether you are simply shouting into the void.

That is why these past few weeks have meant so much to me.

What has been especially heartening is that these successes have come across a range of forms. There has been flash fiction, short stories, and the novel. Different pieces. Different judges. Different competitions. I have been so fortunate, and it has given me real encouragement going forward.

The Exeter result means a great deal. Summer Orphans is a novel very close to my heart. Set during the Troubles in the summer of 1972, it follows two boys from opposite sides of the divide who form an unlikely friendship in South Armagh. I have spent a long time with Willie and Pearse, and there have been plenty of moments where I have wondered whether I was wasting my time, whether the story was too quiet, too literary, too difficult to place.

To see it reach the top 10% of such a respected prize is real, tangible evidence that there’s something there.

Perhaps most encouragingly of all, Summer Orphans has also led to two full manuscript requests from literary agents. After so long working on the novel, and so much time spent wondering whether it might ever find the right home, it means a great deal to know that there are people in the industry who believe in it enough to want to read more.

It is still extremely early, and publishing is never certain (I’m not counting my chickens!) but for the first time in a long time, the possibility of the novel finding its place feels real.

The same is true of the stories. A longlist is not the final step, and there are always rejections too – many more rejections than successes – but each little piece of good news is a sign that the work is moving in the right direction.

I think, too, because writing is such a solitary thing, it can be easy to forget to stop and take stock. I am very quick to move on to the next submission, the next story, the next thing to worry about. There is always another competition, another rejection, another blank page.

But two months ago, I would have been thrilled with just one of these pieces of news.

To have all of them arrive together feels very special indeed.

And even with the successes, I’m still hungry for more!

Thank you to everyone who has read my work, encouraged me, published me, judged competitions, or simply listened to me talk endlessly about stories. Thank you especially to those who have supported me through the quieter periods too, when there was less to celebrate and more to doubt.

I know there is still a long way to go. I still want an agent. I still want to publish a novel and more. I still want to keep writing better stories, take more risks, and continue improving.

But for once, I’m allowing myself to smile and take it in.

Now: back to the writing.