Roddy Doyle, Maxine Peake and Suzanne Moore named as judges
for Gordon Burn Prize 2015
Prize now open for submissions until Monday 2 March
The Gordon Burn Prize has announced the judges of its 2015
competition to celebrate innovation in literature. Roddy Doyle, Maxine
Peake and Suzanne Moore will be joined on the panel by novelist and
journalist Doug Johnstone and artist Gavin Turk.
The prize is now open for submissions until Monday 2 March 2015. In
the spirit of Gordon Burn’s work, the prize awards writing which crosses
boundaries, calls into question perceived notions of genre, and which
dares to tread the fine line between fact and fiction. Published works of
both fiction and non-fiction are welcomed.
Gordon Burn was a writer for whom no subject or character was beyond
fictionalising. Peter Sutcliffe, Alma Cogan, Duncan Edwards, George
Best and Bobby Charlton, Damien Hirst, Gordon Brown, Margaret
Thatcher, and even Gordon Burn himself: Burn loved to take characters
already burnished in the celebrity spotlight and explore the darkness
beneath.
Sometimes he would choose fiction to do this, as in his Whitbread
Prize-winning debut, Alma Cogan; other times – and sometimes within
the same book – his methods and intentions were more ambiguous.
Across a broad range of interests including social history, sport, true
crime, music, celebrity and art, the reader begins to question the very
nature of what he is reading. Fiction? Non-fiction? Faction?
The Gordon Burn Prize launched in 2012 and is a partnership between
New Writing North, the Gordon Burn Trust and Faber and Faber,
publishers of Gordon’s work.
The 2015 prize will reward a published title written in the English
language, which in the opinion of the judges most successfully
represents the spirit and sensibility of Gordon’s fearless and
experimental literary methods: novels and non fiction brave enough to
recast characters and events to create a new and vivid reality.
A shortlist of no more than ten books will be announced in August 2015
and the winner will be announced at an awards ceremony as part of
Durham Book Festival in October 2015. The winning writer will receive a
cheque for £5,000 and be offered the opportunity to undertake a writing
retreat of up to three months at Gordon Burn’s cottage in the Scottish
Borders.
Previous winners of the award include Ben Myers (2013) for his novel,
Pig Iron, published by Blue Moose, and to Paul Kingsnorth (2014) for
The Wake, published by Unbound.
The 2015 award will focus on work published in hardback, paperback or
digitally between 1 July 2014 and 1 July 2015.
On behalf of the Gordon Burn Trust, Carol Gorner, wife of Gordon
Burn, said: “The establishing of the prize is something Gordon wanted
to happen and he would be thrilled by how well it has been received. He
really loved prizes, and not only when he won. This might sound
unlikely for the author of Happy Like Murderers, but the emotion and
drama of awards always moved and fascinated him. In addition to the
amazing winners, the response from those asked to be judges, and the
quality of the short listed writers has far exceeded our expectations. It
has validated our and Gordon's belief that there is an appetite for
fearless and original writing. We can't wait for the next winners to
emerge.”
Lee Brackstone, Gordon Burn’s editor at Faber & Faber, and
creative director of Faber Social said:
“The Gordon Burn Prize rewards innovative work across both fiction
and non-fiction which best represents the spirit of Gordon's prose. In a
celebrity-saturated world, which is increasingly documented in
monochrome and monotonous style, it is thrilling to be associated with a
prize that embraces adventurous and unusual ways of engaging with
the culture.”
Claire Malcolm, Chief Executive of New Writing North said:
“Gordon Burn was one of the most exciting writers to have emerged
from the North East’s dynamic writing scene. This prize creates a living
legacy for his work and will keep interest alive in his novels and nonfiction. It was always a very stimulating experience to work with Gordon
and the two novelists that have received the prize so far are both
contributing much to the UK’s literary scene”.
For full details about the prize, as well as submission guidelines, see
www.newwritingnorth.com
For more information about the Gordon Burn Trust and the work of
Gordon Burn, see www.gordonburntrust.com
NOTES TO EDITOR
The Gordon Burn Trust
The Gordon Burn Trust is a charity set up in honour of the writer Gordon
Burn. With the aim of creating an ongoing legacy to Burn's life and work
by supporting writers and artists and fostering great literature and art.
Gordon Burn’s house is in Longformacus, a small hamlet six miles from
Duns, twelve miles from the coast at Coldingham, and approximately a
45 minute drive to Edinburgh. It is a simple stone building in a listed
terrace, with the Dye Water running in front of it. This peaceful rural
setting is well suited to creative work. The house is cabin like, with a
large fireplace on the ground floor. There is also a comparatively large
garden, where a studio an art studio has been purpose built for a
companion artist residency prize.
New Writing North
New Writing North is the development agency for creative writing and
reading in the North of England. It works in partnership with regional
and national partners to produce a range of literary and performance
activities including flagship projects such as The Northern Writers’
Awards, the Gordon Burn Prize and Durham Book Festival.
It specialises in developing and investing in writers of all ages and acts
as a dynamic broker between writers, producers, publishers and
broadcasters across the creative industries. Current partners include
BBC Radio 3, Channel 4 Drama, Faber and Faber, Northumbria
University and Durham University. New Writing North’s entrepreneurial
approach to talent development has also seen it launch new writers via
its Moth Publishing crime imprint in partnership with Business
Educational Publishers and work with Northumbria University to stage
the innovative Crime Story festival event.
As a producer of new work it commissions a wide range of writing from
topical essays and publications to award-winning dance theatre
productions, short films, live literature and broadcast projects.
Faber and Faber
Faber and Faber remains one of the last of the great independent
publishing houses in London. With the depth of its backlist, featuring
books by no fewer than twelve Nobel Laureates and six Booker Prizewinners, Faber and Faber continues to publish the very best fiction,
non-fiction, poetry, music, drama, film and children’s books. It is the
proud publisher of Gordon Burn’s body of literary work, comprised of ten
titles. Complete information can be found at www.faber.co.uk .
For all media enquiries, please contact Laura Fraine,
Marketing and Communications Manager at New Writing
North laurafraine@newwritingnorth.com Direct line 0191 204
8854