Lancaster author shortlisted for book of year award

Lancaster writer Carys Davies is in the running for two major literary awards.
Lancaster author, Carys Davies.Lancaster author, Carys Davies.
Lancaster author, Carys Davies.

Davies has been shortlisted for the prestigious 2015 Wales Book of the Year for her new collection of short stories.

The Redemption of Galen Pike is one of three books shortlisted in the Fiction category of the annual award for the best book of the year by an author either born or currently living in Wales.

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The other two authors shortlisted in the Fiction category are Cynan Jones for his novel, The Dig and Tyler Keevil for his collection of short stories, Burrard Inlet.

Two other categories, Poetry and Creative Non-fiction, make up the nine-strong shortlist, with the winner to be revealed on June 4.

It was also announced this month that Davies’ collection had made the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize longlist of 15 books, designed to showcase the breadth and vibrancy of British writing today. Now in its fifth year, the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize is unique in its aim to celebrate great British fiction and each year awards eight writers £5,000 each.

Davies, who took seven years to write The Redemption of Galen Pike –her second short story collection – said: “Many people do still think of the short story as something slight and unsatisfying but I think these are exciting times. A lot of the big literary prizes have recently been won by short story writers and I think people are starting to realise that short stories are not slight at all – they are amazing, intense, urgent things.”

Stories from Davies’s collection have already scooped the VS Pritchett Prize from the Royal Society of Literature, a Northern Writer’s Award, and the Society of Authors’ Olive Cook Award.

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