Not Thomas Not the Booker Not to be…

On October 16, 2017 By Sara GethinIn Author, New Book, New Novel, Not the Booker Prize, Not Thomas, NottheBooker, Reading, Writing2 Comments

So it’s over

The Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize drew to a close this morning with a very happy outcome for one of the authors on the shortlist.

Dark Chapter by Winnie M Li is Not the Booker winner 2017

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Huge congratulations to Winnie. Her book is moving and brave and a worthy winner. The public vote was a closely fought battle, with Winnie’s novel achieving 130 votes, 24 ahead of Harriet Paige’s Man with a Seagull on his Head.

The public vote wasn’t the end of it, though. The judges’ verdict came next, chaired by Sam Jordison, head judge (think Len Goodman or Shirley Ballas) and organiser of the Not the Booker prize for the last 9 years.

The judges’ comments were really interesting, and listening to and watching them live online as each book was reviewed was a rather surreal experience.

And there was a little surprise for me.

One of the judges – book blogger and avid reader, Jackie Law – made some lovely comments about Not Thomas, saying it was her second choice behind Man with a Seagull on his Head. She called Not T poignant, never mawkish and a very engaging story which raised important issues without preaching. I’m very grateful to Jackie for her positive remarks.

Next the judges’ points were awarded. Yvain Poncet, along with Jackie, voted for Man with a Seagull, while third judge, Hannah Macdonald, gave her vote to Dark Chapter which, when added to the public vote, made this novel the winner.

Sam commented that Dark Chapter was ‘possibly controversial but that’s what winners are meant to be.’ He decided not to use his casting vote, saying: ‘We can feel that we made a strong choice.’

And that was the Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize done and dusted for another year

IMG_20171012_193740997 Not the Booker shortlisted authors at the Big Green Bookshop, Wood Green, London, from left to right: Rowena Macdonald, Harriet Paige – chair, Sam Jordison – Winnie M Li & me

I feel as if I’ve woken up from a very strange dream. This prize contest began back in July and seems to have dominated the last two and a half months of my writing life. It’s been a completely bizarre episode but one, as I’ve said many times since the summer, I wouldn’t have missed for the world.

So what have I learned from my Not the Booker experience?

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Well…

#1 Sometimes opportunities come along that are too good to waste and you have to be brave and just throw yourself at them – even if, like me, you’re not terribly brave at all.

#2 Public voting is a mixed blessing – some people don’t mind you letting them know they can vote for your book if they wish, while some people do.

But…

#3 The vast majority of people are helpful, kind and supportive.

#4 Social media is a godsend – but you knew that already, it’s just me that needed convincing.

#5 Social media is not a godsend when you’re on it for eight hours or more, seven days in a row.

And finally…

#6 Being shortlisted, when you’ve not got a snowball’s chance in hell of going any further (I’m thinking judges’ voting here) is almost as good as winning – I am just so grateful I had a place on that shortlist.

As I was dropping off to sleep last night, I began wondering what advice I’d give anyone who finds their book nominated for the NTB next year

I’d say go for it 100%, obviously, but what else? What tips would I share?

And then I started thinking of a whole new blog post, one titled ‘So you’ve been nominated for the Not the Booker Prize 2018…’

But I think I’ll put that on hold until next year, by which time the last few months will be a happy, distant memory and I won’t remember a single tip to share.

Thank you for reading and keeping me company on this often weird and wonderful experience. And to everyone who voted for Not Thomas and cheered me on – I am so grateful. You are all magnificent!

Diolch o galon,

Sara x

P.S. I’m planning on starting what I hope will become my new novel soon, and so my next series of blog posts will have some writing tips about points to remember when beginning a fresh WiP. I need reminding – I began writing Not T back in 2001!

Sara’s debut novel ‘Not Thomas’ – a story of child neglect, love and hope, shown through the eyes of five-year-old Tomos – is published by Honno Press in paperback and as an e-book, and is available to buy direct from the publisher, from Amazon and from bookshops.

#MusicTherapyThursday

On October 12, 2017 By Sara GethinIn Child, Children, Music, New Book, New Novel, Not the Booker Prize, Not Thomas, NottheBooker, Writing2 Comments

I’ll be taking part in the Big Green Bookshop’s Not the Booker discussion event in London this evening, so today, in need of a little relaxation, I thought I’d turn to the music of Kate Bush. I’ve chosen ‘Moments of Pleasure’.

This is the song I played when I wanted to get into the mood for writing as Tomos. I don’t really know why this song came to epitomise Tomos for me – the lyrics don’t relate to the theme of Not Thomas at all – but something in the tone of the music just worked. I think the music has a sadness but also hope.

And the vulnerability of Kate’s voice never failed to trigger the right emotions in me. Now I only need to hear the opening couple of notes to be right back there with Tomos, in that decrepit house, in the dark, up on his high sleeper bed, under the jumpers and towels, with Mammy’s pink tee shirt…

P.S. If you haven’t already, please consider voting for Not Thomas on the Guardian’s online Not the Booker prize page – voting closes on Sunday night and the winner will be announced on Monday, 16th October. Thank you!

Not the Booker Final Public Vote

On October 10, 2017October 10, 2017 By Sara GethinIn Child, Children, New Book, New Novel, Not the Booker Prize, Not Thomas, NottheBooker, Writing1 Comment

A huge thank you and diolch yn fawr to everyone who voted ‘Not Thomas’ onto the shortlist of the Guardian’s Not the Booker prize.

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The final public vote has just opened to help decide the winner. I know the original vote was fraught with problems because of the Guardian’s fiendishly difficult website, but if you’d like to vote for Not Thomas and have the energy to tackle that voting page again, this is the link.

Hopefully, having navigated the page once, second time around it won’t be quite so horrendous.

Of course, you’re still able to vote even if you didn’t vote in the first round. Click in the box that says ‘join the discussion’ near the bottom of the voting page.

The Guardian would like your vote to start with the word VOTE then the title and author of the book and a 50 word review. Your previous review should still be online, and if you click on your username it should take you to it.

It’s been a weird couple of months on the shortlist

and I have yet to take part in the Big Green Bookshop event, where I’ll meet some of the other authors, which I’m really looking forward to, and my scathing reviewer, Sam Jordison, which should be rather interesting. I’ll be reporting back when I get the chance!

In the meantime, thank you so much for your support of Not T and me – I appreciate it very much indeed.

Bye for now & diolch o galon,

Sara x

P.S. Here’s that voting link again

Not the Booker Goes Silent

On October 5, 2017 By Sara GethinIn Author, Not the Booker Prize, Not Thomas, NottheBooker10 Comments

It’s been a strange week on the Guardian’s Not the Booker prize shortlist.

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All six shortlisted novels have been reviewed by Sam Jordison, who runs the prize, and one novel, in a shock announcement, has been removed from the competition by its author. There’ve been no more books to review and no comments from readers, as the threads under each of the novels are closed. And so it’s been a very quiet week on the Not the Booker page.

So what happens next?

As there’s no up-to-date information yet this year, I’ve looked back at what happened last year, and I’m assuming there’ll be another online public vote, where readers can choose their favourite book from the shortlist of five. The voting will probably open this weekend, or soon after, and run for the whole week.

I’m guessing that, like last year, people will be asked to vote for only one novel on the shortlist and to write a 50 word review – half the number of words required in the previous round.

If Sam follows last year’s system, the book that wins the public vote will get two points. No points will be awarded for second place.

Then it’s the turn of the judges.

Sam will choose three judges from people who’ve reviewed this year’s books in the comment threads on the Not the Booker page. Last year, the judges were announced when the public voting opened. This year, surprisingly, the judges don’t need to have read all of the shortlisted books, only three. Each judge has one vote, and in the case of a tie, Sam has the casting vote.

The winner will be announced live online.

Last year, the judges discussed the shortlisted novels with Sam via Skype on the morning after the public vote closed. Maybe that will be the case this year too. I expect Sam will let us know soon. But until then, all the above is speculation.

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So this week has been a pause for breath.

Next week will be busy, with public voting open again, that dreadful Guardian site to help would-be voters navigate and a live event at the Big Green Bookshop in London. Four of the shortlisted authors are expected to be there, including this one, and Sam will be chairing the discussion. Oh the joy – Tomos and I will need all the positive vibes you can send us!

I’ll update my blog when I have more definite information but until then, thanks for reading,

Sara x

Not the Booker SHOCK Announcement

On September 22, 2017 By Sara GethinIn Author, New Book, New Novel, Not the Booker Prize, Not Thomas, NottheBooker, Reading, Writing11 Comments

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Wow! What a week for the Guardian’s Not the Booker prize.

Everything was going along swimmingly – albeit with some pretty choppy waves for a couple of us on the shortlist – and then crash! Out of the blue, Ann O’Loughlin, author of The Ludlow Ladies’ Society, gave Sam Jordison quite a shock.

Ann has withdrawn her novel from the shortlist.

In a statement published by the Guardian, she said:

“I feel a great sense of relief to be moving away from a competition that caused so much stress in my life and that of my family.”

Read her full statement here

Ann already has a very large, faithful following of readers, and as she points out in her statement to the Guardian, her novels have been translated into eight languages and are published in the US. As she says, she didn’t ask to be nominated, and she was worried from the start about what she refers to as the “unjustifiable criticism” that appeared in the comments section from people who hadn’t even read the book.

And she’s quite right.

There are a few people on the Guardian page who clearly don’t read the nominated books but still enjoy leaving a barbed comment or two. All that is par for the course, as far as I’m concerned, but then I’d followed this prize for a few years and knew exactly what to expect. Had I been going into this without a clue what it could be like, then I might feel, like Ann, that it wasn’t worth the stress.

And yes, it is stressful at times – and I imagine it will be even more so, now that mine is the only novel left on the shortlist that Sam has been particularly scathing of.

But for me it’s worth that bit of stress.

Unlike Ann, who’s been writing novels for a number of years and has a few under her belt, Not Thomas is my first novel for adults. I don’t have a ready-made fan base – although I’m incredibly grateful to my wonderful readers who have championed Not Thomas and brought it to the attention of others, and who nominated it for the Not the Booker prize and voted it onto the shortlist.

I always said that being part of this prize was like building a platform for Tomos – giving him a headstart in a world jam-packed with new books.

Not Thomas is a debut novel, published by a tiny publisher, and Not the Booker has brought it to a wider audience than would otherwise have been possible so soon after its publication.

I’m really sorry Ann has decided to leave the competition, but I know her novel will do very well, with or without the publicity of Not the Booker.

The other week I went into Easons, the huge bookstore on O’Connell Street in Dublin. Ann’s novel The Ludlow Ladies’ Society was very prominently positioned on a table near the main door. It had a similar position in many of the other Dublin bookstores I visited too. I have no doubt it’s going to fly off the shelves in Ireland and beyond.

So, au revoir and all the very best to Ann.

While the five of us left on the shortlist will be squirming for a while yet – and me in particular – I know The Ludlow Ladies’ Society will be doing just fine.

Thanks for reading – please let me know your thoughts!

Sara x

P.S. Don’t forget the Narberth Book Fair in Pembrokeshire tomorrow, 23rd September. At 11am I’ll be chatting to Jan Baynham about writing ‘Not Thomas’ and my experience of being on the Not the Booker prize shortlist. It’s free so come along!

#WelshWordWednesday – Calennig

On September 13, 2017September 13, 2017 By Sara GethinIn Author, New Book, New Novel, Not the Booker Prize, Not Thomas, NottheBooker3 Comments

#WelshWordWednesday

For readers of ‘Not Thomas’ that aren’t familiar with Welsh, the word for today is calennig as found on page 75.

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The lady next door gives Tomos a coin through the gap in the hedge, making him wait while he desperately wants to go and see what’s inside his Santa Sack.

The lady calls the coin ‘calennig‘ and it turns out to be an old fifty pence piece. But no, calennig doesn’t mean a thoroughly useless object, it means a ‘New Year gift’ – its literal meaning is ‘the first day of the month’ – and calennig is supposed to be lucky.

It’s an old Welsh custom which has stood the test of time, and these days some people in Wales still give lucky calennig to children on New Year’s Day – but I’m not sure if Tomos’s calennig brings him too much luck.

Sara’s debut novel Not Thomas – a story of child neglect, love and hope, shown through the eyes of a five-year-old – is published by Honno Press in paperback and as an e-book, and is available to buy direct from the publisher, from Amazon and from all good bookshops.

Not the Booker at the Halfway Point

On September 11, 2017 By Sara GethinIn Author, LitFic, New Novel, Not the Booker Prize, Not Thomas, NottheBooker, Writing8 Comments

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Well, here we are – mid way through the Guardian’s Not the Booker prize process.

Half of the novels on the shortlist have been reviewed by the Guardian’s Sam Jordison so far. ‘Dark Chapter’ by Winnie M Li, ‘The Ludlow Ladies’ Society’ by Ann O’Loughlin and my own, ‘Not Thomas’ have all felt the sting of Sam’s not overly-friendly reviewing skills. They’ve had their turn for comments from members of the reading public too.

As I type, Sam is uploading his review of the fourth novel, ‘The Threat Level Remains Severe’ by Rowena Macdonald, and then that too will be ready for all the comments – positive, negative or indifferent – that readers want to throw at it.

It’s been a fun and odd five weeks for my novel ‘Not Thomas’ since the Guardian’s shortlist was announced.

Although being reviewed first wasn’t the easiest of positions, it has meant that ‘Not Thomas’ has ended up being mentioned in relation to the other books too. And the more it’s mentioned, the more its title gets ‘out there’.

In his review, Sam denounced Tomos as too young to think the way I’ve portrayed him. That’s fair enough – after all, I expect everyone has their own view of what a typical five-year-old is like, and even if we don’t know any right now, we’ve all been one in the past.

Fortunately for me, a few teachers and some other people who work with children came to Tomos’s defence in the comment thread of the ‘Not Thomas’ review, pointing out that at age five children fit into a broad spectrum of abilities.

And even Sam defended ‘Not Thomas’ the other day – in a very mild way, of course. When someone who hadn’t even read it suggested it was a ‘clunker’, Sam said it wasn’t a clunker and that “Not Tomas (sic) had some good points”. That’s about as much praise as I expect from him. (But note the misspelt title – what little he gives with one hand he takes away with the other!)

There are five more weeks to go before this year’s winner of the Not the Booker prize will be announced.

The live announcement will be made on Monday 16th October. But before that, there’ll be a week of public voting to endure, and along with some of the other finalists, I’ll be attending an event in London where there’ll be debates, readings and Q&A sessions. All good fun – nerve-wracking, nail-biting, good fun.

I’ll be over-dosing on the flower remedy again!

Thanks for reading.

Love,

Sara x

P.S. Have you read any of the books on the shortlist? Let me know what you think of the competition so far.

Sara’s debut novel Not Thomas is published by Honno Press in paperback and as an e-book, and is available to buy direct from the publisher and from Amazon.

Ann’s Take on Not the Booker

On August 28, 2017 By Sara GethinIn Author, New Book, New Novel, Not the Booker Prize, NottheBooker, WritingLeave a comment

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I was so delighted to read Ann O’Loughlin’s post ‘Women Write Great Books’ on the wonderful Irish book blog ‘Swirl & Thread‘ today, that I thought I’d share it on my own blog too.

Ann, like me, has a novel shortlisted for the Guardian’s Not the Booker prize 2017. Her novel is set just outside Dublin and is called ‘The Ludlow Ladies’ Society’. I’m reading it at the moment, appropriately enough while on holiday in Ireland, and it’s a good job I am on holiday as I’m finding it hard to put down. I thoroughly recommend it.

So here’s the start of Mairead’s introduction to Ann’s post, with a link to the rest. I hope you enjoy it as much a I did:

“As most of you are now aware The Guardian plays host to the wonderful Not The Booker Prize, since it’s inception in 2009 by journalist Sam Jordison. This is a literary award decided by the reader and it gives opportunity to many authors to access the type of coverage and notoriety…”

Read more on Swirl & Thread

Sara’s debut novel Not Thomas is published by Honno Press in paperback and as an e-book, and is available to buy direct from the publisher or from Amazon.