WINNER OF THE BRITISH GQ NORMAN MAILER
NON-FICTION WRITING AWARD ANNOUNCED
Helen Madden has been chosen as the inaugural recipient of the annual British GQ Norman Mailer Non-Fiction Writing Award for her submission entitled “Rod, Roy and Jerry Lee”.
The winner was chosen from a shortlist of six by a panel of judges comprising the Editor of the TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT Sir Peter Stothard; novelist and critic Geoff Dyer; Canongate publisher Jamie Byng; novelist and Contributing Editor to GQ Tony Parsons; Condé Nast Managing Director and bestselling author Nicholas Coleridge; GQ Editor Dylan Jones; GQ Features Director Alex Bilmes; leading literary agent Ed Victor; publisher and investor Spas Roussev, and platinum-selling singer-songwriter Lily Allen.
Sir Peter Stothard, remarking on the winner, said “there is a complete absence of cliché in her writing”, and doyen of literary agents Ed Victor commented “if I were only allowed to sign one of the shortlisted writers it would be Madden”. Lily Allen was “delighted there’s such a strong representation of women writers on the shortlist” while Jamie Byng added that “Madden is exactly the kind of writer I’d like Canongate to publish”.
Madden has worked as a teacher and then a broadcaster, from most significantly from 1969 to 1975, on Romper Room, a children’s programme, on Ulster Television. She’s married with a family and has written plays for Radio 4. Three years ago she began an MA in Creative Writing at Queens University, Belfast. Her course tutors are the poet Ciaran Carson, and Ian Sansom, author of The Truth About Babies. It was Sansom who encouraged her to enter the GQ competition. The funeral she wrote about took place twelve years ago.
Her prize comprises an all-expenses paid month at the Norman Mailer Writers Colony, a residential educational centre based at the legendary author’s former home in Provincetown, Massachusetts, a cheque for £1000, and her work will be published in a future issue of Britain’s leading men’s magazine.
“Mailer believed there was very little difference between fiction and non-fiction, remarking “I can’t bear non-fiction unless it reads like fiction. By which I mean there’s a sense of presence, you create an atmosphere, the people are as real in their characters as in novels, and the story is given to you, which is one of the great benefits of non-fiction.” The work of our winner exemplifies this spirit, and sets the benchmark for future competitors,” said Dylan Jones, Editor of British GQ.
NOTES TO EDITORS
- British GQ is the UK’s biggest selling quality men’s magazine. Part of the Condé Nast stable - who also publish VOGUE, VANITY FAIR, and the NEW YORKER - GQ regularly publishes original journalism by writers including AA Gill, Will Self, Tony Parsons, Rod Liddle, Alexis Petridis, Piers Morgan and Matthew d’Ancona.
- The Norman Mailer Writers Colony, co-founded by Mailer’s friend and collaborator Lawrence Schiller, is a not-for-profit residential educational centre based at the legendary author’s former home in Provincetown, MA. It aims to support both aspiring and established talented writers. The Colony’s Advisory Board of Writers includes Nobel Laureate Gunter Grass as well as Joan Didion, Gay Talese, and Pulitzer Prize winners Doris Kearns Goodwin and William Kennedy.
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