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
Love this, Emily! Award season always leaves me with a sense of dread and anxiety; my award driven backstory runs deep! It frustrates me that I care because I really just want to simply enjoy my friends’ success without complex emotion. But caring also drives me to write (hopefully) better. Which is good! I always try to keep the judges’ experience in mind. I don’t envy them. Judging a kids’ writing award was the hardest thing I ever did.
I think we can also excuse ourselves in this industry for swinging wildly between “judges are entitled to their opinions” and “what the hell were you thinking??” But ultimately we have to find a way back to our desks and to the real reason we write.
I am happy this happened for you and hope it happens again! I still write despite never being so lucky, and still hope that it might one day happen for me. I have been a judge, I have been on a longlist and on a shortlist (but never for the most important one), and never a winner. But I have lots of lovely letters and messages from ethnic teenage girls who say they see themselves in my stories, and that feels like its own win.
Agree with everything about being a judge. Sometimes, the ones that win are ones that don't really stand out much. When I did it, there were some categories I felt were more of a popularity contest, as I didn't see what was so good about them in comparison to others.
It’s a bit heartbreaking when you’re a lone voice in a judges’ meeting, but with fewer and fewer ways to promote literature I can’t come down too hard on the fundamental notion of awards, which do at least attract some publicity.
Very true. Nd it’s even harder when the ones that probably were stringer had been ruled out for whatever reason. I did feel that sometimes people voted a certain way because of biases. Or thinking so and so won in another year, let’s give someone else a chance. Very hard to get a view across when other voices are stronger too.
So many. I declined this year cause of time factors and all those things we’ve talked about because well, there were so many I was middling on that I didn’t want to have those arguments again.
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.
Love this, Emily! Award season always leaves me with a sense of dread and anxiety; my award driven backstory runs deep! It frustrates me that I care because I really just want to simply enjoy my friends’ success without complex emotion. But caring also drives me to write (hopefully) better. Which is good! I always try to keep the judges’ experience in mind. I don’t envy them. Judging a kids’ writing award was the hardest thing I ever did.
I think we can also excuse ourselves in this industry for swinging wildly between “judges are entitled to their opinions” and “what the hell were you thinking??” But ultimately we have to find a way back to our desks and to the real reason we write.
I am happy this happened for you and hope it happens again! I still write despite never being so lucky, and still hope that it might one day happen for me. I have been a judge, I have been on a longlist and on a shortlist (but never for the most important one), and never a winner. But I have lots of lovely letters and messages from ethnic teenage girls who say they see themselves in my stories, and that feels like its own win.
Those letters are more real and more weighty than the most glamorous award.
Agree with everything about being a judge. Sometimes, the ones that win are ones that don't really stand out much. When I did it, there were some categories I felt were more of a popularity contest, as I didn't see what was so good about them in comparison to others.
It’s a bit heartbreaking when you’re a lone voice in a judges’ meeting, but with fewer and fewer ways to promote literature I can’t come down too hard on the fundamental notion of awards, which do at least attract some publicity.
Very true. Nd it’s even harder when the ones that probably were stringer had been ruled out for whatever reason. I did feel that sometimes people voted a certain way because of biases. Or thinking so and so won in another year, let’s give someone else a chance. Very hard to get a view across when other voices are stronger too.
Absolutely, so many factors in the mix.
So many. I declined this year cause of time factors and all those things we’ve talked about because well, there were so many I was middling on that I didn’t want to have those arguments again.
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.
Thank YOU for saying that! I'm brewing another one about "popularity", hopefully a balm to our souls.