Tuesday 9 September 2014

Dragon's Pen Winner and Runner-Up

Greenacre Writers and the Finchley Literary Festival are delighted to announce the winner and runner-up of this year's Dragon's Pen. Here is the announcement:

We three Dragons are delighted to let you know that Lindsay Bamfield has won this year's Finchley Literary Festival's Dragon's Pen for her novel-in-progress Do Not Exceed Fifty. 

Lindsay writes extremely well. Her narrative voice is engaging and convincing and we were impressed with the flow of the story, the immediacy of the voice, the structure of the narrative and the tone of her dialogue. Her internal and external observation is excellent and we found ourselves drawn in to Xanthe's life, eager to know if her quest to 'find a man' works out. There is an effortless tone to her writing -  a fiendishly difficult skill to pull off. 

Lindsay will now have the opportunity to be mentored by Gillian Stern, an editor and writer for Bloomsbury, Orion and Penguin. 

In addition, we are also awarding a runner-up spot to Anne Oatley, for her novel-in-progress Blue Devil. We were excited by the strength and originality of her writing, which is taut, intriguing and surprising. Anne will also be given the opportunity to be mentored by Gillian. 

We loved being Dragons and over the next couple of days, will be sending some feedback to all the writers who entered. Thank you for having us and we hope to be back next year.  

Gillian, Cari and Mary

This is fantastic news. A well-deserved winner and runner-up. Congratulations Lindsay. And congratulations Anne. We are very pleased for you both. Well done. 

And a huge thank you to Gillian, Cari and Mary for all their hard work. All the writers who were brave enough to enter the Dragon's Pen will receive feedback from the dragons in the next couple of days. So, keep an eye on your inbox.

1 comment:

Lindsay said...

Wow, this is such a lovely surprise and a fantastic opportunity which I'm aiming to make the most of. (yes I know I finished a sentence with a preposition!)Congratulations to Anne Oatley. I happen to know we were up against some stiff competition, so are very lucky.