‘22 Britannia Road', the debut novel by UEA graduate Amanda Hodgkinson, has been shortlisted for the third biennial New Angle Prize for Literature.  The award is worth £2,000 and celebrates fiction, poetry and literary non-fiction set in or inspired by the East Anglian region.  Amanda (pictured) graduated from the UEA Creative Writing MA in 2001 and now lives in south west France, where she is a columnist for La Dépèche du Midi newspaper in Toulouse.  ‘22 Britannia Road' was published by Fig Tree (Penguin) in 2011 and has been sold in America, France, Italy, Greece and Holland.  It was selected for the inaugural ‘Waterstone's 11' promotion of outstanding first novels.  The winner of the New Angle Prize will be announced on 4th September.

‘L'Étranger’, a new short story by UEA alumna Eliza Robertson, has been included in a shortlist of five stories selected from over 2,400 entries for Canada’s CBC Short Story Prize.  Eliza (pictured) graduated with distinction from the MA in Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) at UEA in 2012, and was the recipient of the Booker Foundation scholarship.  She was last year shortlisted for the Willesden Herald International Short Story Prize and has previously been shortlisted for the McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize and Canada’s National Magazine Awards.  The winner of the CBC Short Story Prize will be announced on March 26 and will receive $6,000, a two-week writing residency at The Banff Centre, and publication in Air Canada’s ‘enRoute’ magazine.  The other finalists will each receive $1,000 and publication on the Canada Writes website.

'The Kills' is a 'digital-first' sequence of four novels by UEA alumnus Richard House and is launched this week by Picador with the release of 'Sutler' in an enhanced edition containing audio and video created by the author.  'Sutler' will be followed by 'The Massive', 'The Kill' and 'The Hit'.  Richard (pictured) graduated from the UEA Creative and Critical Writing PhD in 2008 and now teaches Creative Writing at the University of Birmingham.  He is the author of two previous novels, 'Bruiser' (1997) and 'Uninvited' (1998), and is a member of the Chicago-based art collaborative, 'Haha', whose work has appeared at the New Museum in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and the Venice Biennale.  He is also the editor of the digital magazine 'Fatboy Review'.  The website for 'The Kills' can be found at this address: www.panmacmillan.com/thekills

‘Bolt’, a new short story by current UEA student Thomas Morris, has been shortlisted for the international Willesden Herald short story competition, which is worth £300 to the winner and is this year judged by prizewinning American short story writer David Means.  Thomas (almost pictured) has previously published short fiction in The Irish Times, The Moth, and ETO, and in 2012 received an Emerging Artist Bursary from the Arts Council of Ireland.  He is currently enrolled on the MA in Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) at UEA, where he is working on a collection of stories, and a novel, ‘Second Best: The Diaries of a Substitute Goalkeeper’.  Also shortlisted for the Willesden prize is UEA’s 2005 Charles Pick Writing Fellow, Alistair Daniel, who was recently nominated for the Scott Prize for best short story collection.

‘The Last Runaway’ is the seventh novel by UEA graduate Tracy Chevalier and is published by HarperCollins this month.  Tracy (pictured) was born in Washington DC and moved to English in 1984.  She graduated from the UEA Creative Writing MA in 1994 and published her first novel ‘The Virgin Blue’ in 1996.  Her second novel the ‘Girl With a Pearl Earring’ was published in 1999 and was adapted for cinema, the film receiving three academy award nominations in 2004.  Her sixth novel ‘Remarkable Creatures’ was published in 2009 and longlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

‘If This Was A Love Story’ by UEA writer Armando Celayo has been selected as the winner of the inaugural Salt Prize for Best Individual Flash Fiction.  The competition is international and worth £500 to the winner.  Armando (pictured) graduated from UEA’s MA in Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) in 2010 and is currently completing a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing while working on his novel ‘For The Recovery of Lost Things’. He was last year selected as one of the winners of the Escalator writers’ mentoring scheme.  Jenna Butler, who graduated from UEA’s MA in Creative Writing (Poetry) in 2004, is one of the runners-up for the Salt Prize for Best Individual Poem, while Alistair Daniel, the 2005 Charles Pick Writing Fellow at UEA, is shortlisted for the Scott Prize for best short story collection.

Current UEA student Krishan Coupland has been placed second in the inaugural Poetry Book Society Student Poetry Competition for his poem ‘3:46PM’.  He was also Highly Commended for another poem, ‘Emergency Exit’.  Krishan (pictured) joined UEA this year as a part-time student on the Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) MA, having achieved First Class Honours in his Creative Writing BA at Staffordshire University.  He was the winner of the 2011 Manchester Fiction Prize for his short story ‘Days Necrotic’.

UEA alumnus Toby Litt and current UNESCO City of Literature Visiting Professor Ali Smith have been shortlisted for this year’s Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award.  Toby (pictured) graduated from the UEA MA in Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) in 1995 and was included in the 2003 Granta list of Best of Young British Novelists.  He is the author of nine novels – most recently ‘King Death’ (2010) - and two collections of short fiction.  He is nominated for his story ‘Call It “The Bug” Because I Have No Time to Think of a Better Title’.  Ali Smith joined UEA this semester as a visiting professor, having previously served as a Writing Fellow in 1999, and contributes to the teaching of the MA in Prose Fiction.  Her 2001 novel ‘Hotel World’ was shortlisted for both the Orange Prize and the Man Booker Prize, while her 2004 novel ‘The Accidental’ won the 2005 Whitbread Novel of the Year Award.  She is shortlisted for her story ‘The Beholder’.  The award is worth £30,000 to the winner, the biggest prize in the world for a single short story, with the five other shortlisted writers each receiving £1,000.  The winner will be announced on 22nd March.

‘Five Star Billionaire’ is the third novel by UEA graduate Tash Aw and is published by Fourth Estate this week.  Tash (pictured) was born in Taipei to Malaysian parents and grew up in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  He graduated from the UEA MA in Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) in 2003.  His first novel ‘The Harmony Silk Factory’ was published in 2005 and won the Whitbread First Novel Award and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Novel.  It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and longlisted for the International Impac Dublin Award.  His second novel ‘Map of the Invisible World’ was published in 2009.  His fiction has been translated into 23 languages.

‘Three Birds’ by UEA playwright Janice Okoh will receive its world premiere at the Royal Exchange Theatre in London this month before transferring to the Bush Theatre in London from 20 March - 20 April.  Janice (pictured) graduated from the Scriptwriting strand of UEA's MA in Creative Writing in 2008. Her previous works include ‘Egusi Soup', which premiered at the 2009 Hotbed Festival and was toured by Menagerie, and ‘SE8', which was broadcast in the Afternoon Play slot on BBC Radio 4 in 2010.  Janice a runner-up for the 2011 Verity Bargate Award for ‘The Real House', and was the 2011 winner of the £16,000 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting for ‘Three Birds’.

Three UEA writers have won prizes in the 2012 Café Writers Open Poetry Competition, judged by acclaimed poet Ian Duhig.  Jane Monson (pictured) was awarded second prize in the competition for her prose poem ‘Beam of Light’.  Jane graduated from the UEA MA in Creative Writing (Poetry) in 2000 and subsequently gained a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing from the University of Cardiff. Her first collection ‘Speaking Without Tongues’ was published by Cinnamon Press in 2010.  Colette Sensier won third prize for her poem ‘I Have My Mother’s Eyes’. Colette is currently studying for her MA in Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) at UEA.  She published her debut collection of poetry ‘How Many Camels Is Too Many?’ last year, and was one of five young writers selected for the Flight 2012 mentoring scheme organized by Spread the Word and run in partnership with the Poetry School.  Tim Clare was awarded the prize for Funniest Poem for ‘Mango’. Tim graduated from the Creative Writing (Prose) MA in 2004 and is the author of the memoir ‘We Can't All Be Astronauts', which won the Biography category of the 2009 East Anglian Book Awards, and the collection ‘Pub Stuntman’, published last year by Nasty Little Press.  He is a member of the poetry collective Aisle16, and is a regular performer of stand-up poetry at both literary and music festivals. 

Three graduates of the UEA Creative Writing MA have been longlisted for the third biennial New Angle Prize for Literature.  The award is worth £2,000 to the winner (and £500 for the runner-up) and celebrates fiction, poetry and literary non-fiction set in or inspired by the East Anglian region.  Esther Morgan graduated from the MA in Creative Writing (Poetry) in 1998 and is nominated for her third collection of poetry, ‘Grace’, which was published by Bloodaxe in 2011 and was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize last year.  Amanda Hodgkinson graduated from the MA in Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) in 2001 and is nominated for her first novel ’22 Britannia Road’, which was published by Penguin in 2011.  Sarah Ridgard (pictured) graduated from the MA in 2002 and is nominated for her first novel ‘Seldom Seen’, which was published by Hutchinson last year and shortlisted for the Amazon Rising Stars award.  The shortlist for the prize will be announced on 18th March and the winner on 4th September. 

‘Worthless Men’ is the new novel by UEA Director of Creative Writing, Andrew Cowan, and is published by Sceptre this week.  Andrew is the author of four previous novels. ‘Pig’ won a Betty Trask Award, the Authors' Club First Novel Award, the Ruth Hadden Memorial Prize, a Scottish Arts Council Book Award and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award and was shortlisted for five other awards.  ‘Common Ground’ and ‘Crustaceans’ both received competitive Arts Council bursaries. ‘What I Know’ was a recipient of an Arts Council Writers' Award and was published in 2005.  His guidebook ‘The Art of Writing Fiction’ was published in 2011. Andrew is himself a graduate of the UEA Creative Writing MA, and now teaches on the undergraduate and postgraduate Creative Writing programmes, including the MA in Prose Fiction.

‘Infinite Sky’ is the first novel by UEA alumna Chelsey Flood and is published by Simon and Schuster this week.  Chelsey (pictured) was born in 1983 in Derby, and obtained a BA in English from the University of Falmouth before joining the MA in Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) at UEA.  She graduated in 2010 as the winner of that year’s Curtis Brown Award for best Creative Writing dissertation.  Chelsey began writing ‘Infinite Sky’ during her MA year, and worked on the novel under the guidance of Bernardine Evaristo as part of the Arvon-Jerwood mentoring scheme and subsequently with the assistance of an Arts Council Award.

‘Calcutta: Two Years in the City’ is the latest title by UEA Professor of Contemporary Literature, Amit Chaudhuri, and offers a memoir of two years (2009–2011) in the city of his birth.  It is published this month by Union Books.  Amit is the author of five highly acclaimed novels: ‘A Strange and Sublime Address’, ‘Afternoon Raag’, ‘Freedom Song’, ‘A New World’, and ‘The Immortals’. He is also a poet, an acclaimed musician, and a highly regarded critic, and has edited ‘The Picador Book of Modern Indian Literature’. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and last year won India’s £30,000 Infosys Prize for outstanding contribution to the Humanities in Literary Studies.  He teaches on the MA and PhD programmes in Creative Writing at UEA. 

Four graduates of the UEA Creative Writing MA are among the ten winners of this year’s Escalator Literature Competition, organized by Writers’ Centre Norwich.  Megan Bradbury (pictured) graduated from the Prose Fiction MA in 2005 and is the current Charles Pick Writing Fellow at UEA. Meghan Purvis graduated from the Poetry MA in 2005 and subsequently completed a PhD in Creative & Critical Writing under the supervision of George Szirtes.  She was the winner of the 2011 Times Stephen Spender Prize for poetry in translation.  Lucy Yates graduated from the Prose Fiction MA in 2006 and has since published short fiction in a range of anthologies.  She is currently working on her first novel, ‘From the Mountains Descended Night’, which explores one of the biggest literary scandals of the eighteenth century.  Sue Healy graduated from the Prose Fiction MA in 2009 and has since won a number of prizes for her writing, including the Molly Keane Memorial Award, the HISSAC Prize, the Sussex Playwrights’ Prize, the Meridian Prize, the Waterford-Annaghmakerrig Award and the Ted O’Regan Arts Award.  The Escalator scheme is open to writers from the East of England and offers a year’s worth of mentoring from established writers Tobias Hill, Natasha Cooper, Cathi Unsworth, David Rain and Michelle Spring.  The winners will receive coaching to support applications for grants, attend professional development workshops, and receive introductions to agents and publishers.

‘The Syllabus of Errors: Twelve Stories about Obsession, Loss and Getting in a State’ is the debut collection of short stories by UEA alumnus Ashley Stokes and is published by Unthank Books this month.  Ashley was born in Carshalton, Surrey in 1970 and educated at St Anne's College, Oxford, before joining the UEA MA in Creative Writing in 1997.  He has published short fiction and reviews in a number of journals and national newspapers, and has taught and directed creative writing in UEA's School of Continuing Education, as well as teaching on the undergraduate programmes at UEA and at Norwich University College of the Arts. 

‘Inheritance’ is the first novel by Balli Kaur Jaswal and is published by Sleepers Publishing in Australia this week.  Balli (pictured) was the David TK Wong Writing Fellow at UEA in 2007-08 and began her novel during her time at the university.  She grew up in Singapore, Japan, Russia and the Philippines, and studied creative writing at Hollins University and George Mason University before joining UEA.  Following her Fellowship she moved to Singapore and worked as a journalist for a business magazine before moving to Australia, where she now lives.  ‘Inheritance’ will be launched in Melbourne on 7th February.

Inspired by the libretto to Puccini's ‘Tosca’, ‘Tosca’s Kiss’ is a new 90-minute play by current UEA student Craig Warner and is to be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on Sunday 3rd February.  Craig (pictured) is currently completing the MA in Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) at UEA.  His previous credits include the theatrical and radio adaptations of Patricia Highsmith’s novel ‘Strangers on a Train’, which toured internationally, the radio plays ‘By Where The Old Shed Used To Be’ and ‘Figure With Meat’ which won the 1989 and 1991 BBC/Methuen Giles Cooper Radio Best Play of the Year Award, the screenplays ‘The Mists of Avalon’, which was shortlisted for the 2001 Writers’ Guild Awards, ‘The Queen’s Sister’ which was shortlisted for the 2006 BAFTA Best Single Drama award, and ‘The Last Days of the Lehman Brothers’, which was broadcast on BBC2 and won the Seoul International Drama Awards Best Writer prize in 2010.

UEA graduate Avril Joy has won the inaugural Costa Short Story Award, worth £3,500, for her story ‘Millie and Bird’.  Avril (pictured) gained a BA in History of Art at UEA in 1972, and published her first novel ‘The Sweet Track’ in 2007.  She worked for several years as a teacher in HMP Low Newton, on the outskirts of Durham, and in 2003 won a Northern Promise Award from New Writing North.  The winner of the Costa Short Story Award was chosen by public vote after a judging panel had selected a shortlist of six.