The Writers’ Trust fiction prize jury showed no fear with this year’s shortlist, refusing to spread the wealth among different publishers. Three books from Anansi – Lynn Coady’s Hellgoing, Cary Fagan’s Bird’s Eye and Caught, by Lisa Moore – all made it to the shortlist, alongside Krista Bridge’s The Elliot Girls (Douglas & McIntyre) and A Beautiful Truth by Colin McAdam (Penguin).
Heavy-hitting publishing interests HarperCollins, McClelland & Stewart and Random House were all shut out.
Talk among the industry spectators before this morning’s announcement at Ben McNally Books centred around whether David Gilmour – who caused a firestorm last week over his heterosexual male-centred course reading list and whose Extraordinary is longlisted for this year’s Giller Prize – would make this year’s Writers’ Trust fiction shortlist.
Turns out he was not a factor by the time Gilmour’s insistence that he couldn’t find love for any women authors went viral, though a statement from the organization stressed that “the jury would still have judged the book based on its own merits and not the personality or reputation of its author.”
I’m guessing the Trust is relieved. His inclusion in the shortlist certainly would have pulled focus away from the prize and back onto Gilmour’s appalling confessions about what he reads.
