Amazon Literature Book

I’m a bit late in coming to it (via the Virginia Quarterly Review blog), but the editors of the Willesden Herald, having reaped a balance of fame and scorn for deciding, via the person of their final judge Zadie Smith, not to award their short story prize this year because none of the 850 entrants were good enough, have responded with a list of 27 reasons why your story might have been eliminated. Their tough-love approach may win them no more affection, but the results are interesting reading and would no doubt make a worthwhile checklist for anyone (myself included) lost down the wormhole of their own unread art. They got a little punchy towards the end, where you’ll find some of my favorite entries:

23. Faux jollity. Particularly faux jollity centred around pubs, and
particularly around pubs in Ireland. Industrially extruded quantities
of guff about distant histories in small town life. Standing jokes that
should have been left where they toppled. Weird spastic prose as if the
task of writing the story had been given by a writer with a good idea
to the former class dunce, now barman. I think humour only ever exists
in something that sets out to be serious. Anything that sets out to be
humorous is doomed.




24. Ankles. Particularly ankles in Asia. But
I don’t want to be overly negative and turn critique into a despicable
blood sport, because there have been many charming, fascinating and
amusing entries from the sub-continent as well as from Africa and other
(to me) strange places. As a matter of fact, I’m not at all sure that
Ankles in Asia, though it sounds worryingly now like a rare disease, is
not in fact a virtue. Let a thousand professors dream of butterfly
kisses with a thousand feisty young neighbour girls. And please do try
us again with wonderful tales of African village life and politics.




27. Pastiche. There can be cases where the whole story is a cliché, if
you see what I mean, which is usually to say that it is derivative in
the extreme. If it’s not a simple case of writing to a formula, this is
more seriously a lack of a genuine “voice”. What I usually say about
pastiche is that I’m very impressed by people who can emulate other
writers to a tee, because I find it difficult enough just to write like
myself. Here’s a little story: When I was a kid I used to sing myself
to sleep at night. One Sunday I went to see The Jolson Story
(I think I saw parts 1 and 2) at the Casino cinema in Finglas and
memorised some of the songs. That night I began to sing them in bed,
and trying to sound like Al Jolson. Lying back in the dark, after a
while I asked my Grandad, who slept on the other side of the room, if
he liked my new voice. I’ll always remember his answer because it said
so much. He said, “I prefer your own voice.”

See also their extensive summary of the judging process and Zadie Smith’s original announcement of the non-winner (all of which I find very appealing). –Tom