When my wife Carol told me last December that she had entered my historical novel “None Stood Taller” for the 2022 Selfies Award, I did not believe that I would have any success in this competition. After all, I only started writing books in 2017 during enforced ‘captivity’ after snapping my Achilles tendon, when I needed something no matter what it was, to keep my mind off the pain, and anyway I’m dyslexic!
I obviously could see that the book was selling very well indeed on Amazon, but I did not equate that with actual critical acclaim from the experienced judges of a serious competition such as the Selfies Award. Currently there are three categories for this Award: the latest one introduced is for Memoirs, plus there is a category for Children’s fiction and another for general Adult Fiction – it is not yet sub-divided into Crime, Historical, Romance, etc.
However, to my complete amazement, but not apparently a surprise for Carol, I was one of the finalists in the Adult section! We attended the prize-giving at the London Book Fair on 5th April as invited, and accordingly turned up at Authors HQ in the section upstairs at Olympia known as “The Writers’ Block”, a very apt name, in time for the 4.30 announcement!
It was a great shame that Jo Henry, Managing Director of BookBrunch, which organises the Selfies Awards, had contacted all the shortlisted finalists the previous day because she had just tested positive for Covid and therefore had to back out of leading the Awards ceremony. Her place was ably taken by David Roche, non-executive chair of BookBrunch also chair of the London Book Fair.
Unfortunately I was not the Winner of the Selfies Award 2022, but it has whetted my appetite to have another try in the future – it was a great privilege to be among all those other enthusiastic and successful self-published authors.
We had a very long but absolutely fascinating day trip to London from Gloucestershire, ending up with a large glass of Prosecco while we waited for our train home!