Pendleton May First Novel Award 2003
Sponsored by Pendleton May Insurance Brokers & Financial Advisors Plc with Guildford Arts

This year, 48 novels were submitted for the First Novel Award.
The Presentation Night on 28th October was attended by six of the shortlisted novelists accompanied by their publishers, agents, family and friends. Mark Haddon sent his apologies as he was unable to attend.

Elizabeth Buchan gave a short talk about the novels and wished the writers every success in the future. Elizabeth invited the writers to read excerpts from their novels before she announced the winner.

The Award was presented to Babs Horton by Douglas May, of Pendleton May Financial Advisors, for her novel A Jarful of Angels.

The seven novels shortlisted were:

Kira Cochrane                The Naked Season

Edward Docx                  The Calligrapher

Elizabeth Garner            Nightdancing

Mark Haddon                  The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

Babs Horton                    A Jarful of Angels

Talitha Stevenson          An Empty Room

Jane Yardley                   Painting Ruby Tuesday 

Allianz Cornhill Short Story Competition 2003

Nearly 170 stories were entered and the judging panel, headed by Penny Vincenzi, chose 20 stories for the shortlist. Penny gave a short talk about short story writing and announced the three winners. Penny thanked all the writers very much for your participation and offered her best wishes for the future.

Jamie Lewis of Allianz Cornhill presented the prizes and the three writers read their stories to the audience.

The winning stories from a shortlist of 20 were as follows:

 1st prize: Valerie Bowes for her story Skin Deep

 Joint 2nd prize: Kay Doyle for her story Circle Dancing

 Joint 2nd prize: Mark Rickman for his story Alec’s Dog