Love this so much. I never won a pig, but I did win two Violet Crumble bars for dressing up as Pippi Longstocking. I ate one, gave the other to my brother, and felt miserable that I didn't eat both. Thanks for writing this. xx
Emily, this is such a useful piece for all authors and writers. It’s so important to understand that there are so many factors out of the writer’s control in this industry. Thank you for writing this x
This is such a wise and useful article, Emily! I've been longlisted, shortlisted, won and been a judge on awards and couldn't agree more with you (and Sonya Hartnett). One thing I'd add is that it's not simply that awards provide an ego-boost for authors - it's that the award money can be life-changing when we have a 'job' that rarely pays a living wage. I paid off my mortgage with my award winnings, but it really was like winning the lottery, just pure luck that the judges ended up deciding on my book rather than the equally deserving other books on the shortlist. I think there'd be less angst about awards if we all got paid properly for our work.
Yes! Thank you for raising that, Michelle. I said in a previous post that the award I won had doubled my writing income for that year, which as you say felt like winning the lottery (and in reality was a few months' of mortgage repayments). Ireland has some great ideas for making writing a viable career, with a set number of "living wage" grants, and I'm not sure if they still have their tax exemption scheme but that sounds good too!
I received a lot of ‘Most Enthusiastic’ type awards at school. I always thought it was worse than nothing because everyone then knew how hard I’d tried and *still* hadn’t come out on top 😂 🐷 this is a generous and reassuring piece - thank you!
My sympathy to dear enthusiastic Little Miranda, and all the kids who over-analyse their awards as we both did!
The huge challenge of this industry is that we keep moving our own goalposts. Something I find reassuring and amusing is knowing that writers have always done this - the creator of Little Grey Rabbit and other popular children's books, Alison Uttley, was extremely jealous of Enid Blyton's commercial success, thought Beatrix Potter was a hack and carried around a lot of resentment - and how daft that sounds in retrospect when she could have just been enjoying her own success.
Love this so much. I never won a pig, but I did win two Violet Crumble bars for dressing up as Pippi Longstocking. I ate one, gave the other to my brother, and felt miserable that I didn't eat both. Thanks for writing this. xx
I think you've hit on the solution - all literary awards should be Violet Crumbles, strictly one each.
Emily, this is such a useful piece for all authors and writers. It’s so important to understand that there are so many factors out of the writer’s control in this industry. Thank you for writing this x
Thank YOU for saying that! I'm brewing another one about "popularity", hopefully a balm to our souls.
Oh...yes. That would be a great one to read as well. So important to put these things out there to keep it real.
This is such a wise and useful article, Emily! I've been longlisted, shortlisted, won and been a judge on awards and couldn't agree more with you (and Sonya Hartnett). One thing I'd add is that it's not simply that awards provide an ego-boost for authors - it's that the award money can be life-changing when we have a 'job' that rarely pays a living wage. I paid off my mortgage with my award winnings, but it really was like winning the lottery, just pure luck that the judges ended up deciding on my book rather than the equally deserving other books on the shortlist. I think there'd be less angst about awards if we all got paid properly for our work.
Yes! Thank you for raising that, Michelle. I said in a previous post that the award I won had doubled my writing income for that year, which as you say felt like winning the lottery (and in reality was a few months' of mortgage repayments). Ireland has some great ideas for making writing a viable career, with a set number of "living wage" grants, and I'm not sure if they still have their tax exemption scheme but that sounds good too!
I received a lot of ‘Most Enthusiastic’ type awards at school. I always thought it was worse than nothing because everyone then knew how hard I’d tried and *still* hadn’t come out on top 😂 🐷 this is a generous and reassuring piece - thank you!
My sympathy to dear enthusiastic Little Miranda, and all the kids who over-analyse their awards as we both did!
The huge challenge of this industry is that we keep moving our own goalposts. Something I find reassuring and amusing is knowing that writers have always done this - the creator of Little Grey Rabbit and other popular children's books, Alison Uttley, was extremely jealous of Enid Blyton's commercial success, thought Beatrix Potter was a hack and carried around a lot of resentment - and how daft that sounds in retrospect when she could have just been enjoying her own success.
Daft indeed! There’s always so much to enjoy and be proud of when we let ourselves.