Cover stories: Romantic novels, Commonwealth Writers Prize, Doctor Who
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Your support makes all the difference.Literary folk, who should know better, rather look down their noses at so-called romantic fiction, assuming it to mean Mills & Boon schlock for people who may be able to read but who can't think. But just as the term romantic music embraces Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, say, or Dvorak's New World, so romantic fiction includes Anna Karenina, all of Jane Austen, Cider with Rosie... So it's good news that a novel with a real story – by a real writer with a PhD in history – this week won the £10,000 Parker Romantic Novel of the Year Award. The Other Boleyn Girl (HarperCollins) by Philippa Gregory is a richly involving story of the Boleyn family's struggle to put Anne on the throne – and keep her there. That the reader remains engrossed despite knowing it all ends in tears should be recommendation enough, for this is a portrait of the Tudor court that you can see and hear and smell. Gregory's win should raise the status of the genre – and the RNA prize – in the eyes of doubters.
* Having broken his prize duck for Atonement with the WH Smith Literary Award last week, Ian McEwan now moves on to Edinburgh for another heavyweight clash. Next Wednesday McEwan, regional winner for the Europe/Asia section of the Commonwealth Writers Prize, will take on Alice Munro, Nadine Gordimer and Richard Flanagan for the award that gave the first high-profile recognition to both Vikram Seth and Louis de Bernières. In a rare conjunction of royalty and literature, the Princess Royal will preside over the prize dinner at Holyroodhouse Palace. And, whether Australian Richard Flanagan hooks the big prize or not, we'll be hearing much more about his Gould's Book of Fish. This shaggy piscine story of a fish-painting convict in Tasmania (where Flanagan lives) prompted Oz comparisons with Sterne, Melville and Dostoyevsky. Watch your back, Peter Carey. Atlantic Books publishes it here in June.
* An opportunity for Doctor Who fans: Telos, publishers of Doctor Who novellas, is accepting unsolicited manuscripts for that range, and other fantasy and horror series. New titles will mark the 40th anniversary of the Doctor next year. Publisher David Howe commented that "if we can find some talented new authors with some original and innovative ideas, then we are quite prepared to publish more books". Guidelines are available at www.telos.co.uk.
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