Salt author, Alison Moore, on being longlisted in the Man Booker Prize
Alison Moore — author of The Lighthouse, long listed for the Man Booker Prize 2012.
We asked Alison Moore how she was coping with the extraordinary news of her longlisting in the Man Booker Prize 2012.
“Wow, I’m still reeling from the news that my first novel, The Lighthouse, has been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2012. Early afternoon on Wednesday, when the longlist had not yet been published, I was at home with my three-year-old, trying not to go too often to my computer to press F5. Mid-afternoon, I took him out on his new little bike and we went down the road to the playpark. Arthur was on the swinging log selling me pretend ice creams when my husband Dan came whizzing up on his bike yelling, ‘You’re in!’ It was like he was talking to me through a thick pane of glass. It was a numbingly good moment, one to put in a box and keep. But then he had to cycle home again to make sure he’d read it right. There was still more playparking to be done though, and we went to another one before heading home. I had a spell online and on Facebook, seeing the evidence for myself, and then we went to the pub over the road for our tea and a celebratory pint. I’ve been getting the nicest emails and comments on Facebook from people including primary school friends, other authors and my agent Nick Royle, and exciting news about foreign rights, translation rights and audio rights coming through on email from Jen and Chris at Salt. I keep forgetting I’m not excited because it might happen but because it has happened. Right now, Arthur’s having his Friday afternoon playtime with his grandma, so while they’re in the garden playing with mud and stones, I have time to sit here buzzing, and trying to concentrate on writing novel #2. My sister is coming tonight for the weekend and we’ll be opening a bottle of champagne I was kindly given by my friend Isabel who’d enjoyed an early copy of the book. This also means finally getting round to a bit of housework.”
Seeing another author’s first novel receiving such recognition gives the rest of us first novel authors hope that it can also happen to us. And the fact that the novel became published through an independent publisher, Salt Publishing, makes the news even sweeter! The era of mega publishing house control over publishing and distribution of literature has taken a step toward extinction, an extinction that opens the way for a new generation of publishers.
B. R. Fleming
“Summertime Blues”