Another record breaking year for the Journalism Prize

Wednesday 06 March 2013

Here’s your reading list for the next few months: we’ve published a full list of entries for the Orwell Prize 2013. Yet again, we’ve received a record number of submissions for the Journalism Prize, with 210 books and 155 journalists put forward. More details – and links – can be found on the Book Prize 2013 and Journalism Prize 2013 entry pages. The longlists will be announced at midday on Wednesday 20th March online. You can reserve your place to this year’s annual shortlist announcement and debate here.

The Wigan Pier Workshops

Last week The Orwell Prize and Stephen Armstrong (author of The Road to Wigan Pier Revisited) went to Wigan to run a series of workshops for local teens at Sunshine House Community Centre. The writers who taught included Rosie Boycott, Avaes Mohammad, John Hegley and Paul Anderson. English PEN are supported us to cheers by bringing Mohammad and Hegley. We’re very grateful to Sunshine House for hosting us and feeding everyone as well as organising the involvement of more than nine schools. We all had a fantastic time with the young people and they produced some wonderful writing we hope to share with you soon. See here for a full press release on the event.

Anthony Burgess Foundation

While in Manchester we visited the Anthony Burgess Foundation at their brilliant venue where there is a library of Burgess’ books. We were able to see Burgess’ own copies of Orwell classics. The Orwell Prize hopes to join The Anthony Burgess Foundation for an event very soon and we will update you with details as soon as we have them. In the meantime, we recommend a visit to check them out.

From elsewhere

  • In case you missed 2013 Orwell Book Prize winner’s thoughtful piece about Chris Kyle here it is; He Shot 160… and Died Because He Cared
  • Our lovely friends at Church House are looking forward to hosting the 2013 Prize Ceremony. You can book your ticket here.
  • Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four was listed in the Telegraph‘s Top 20 books they tried to ban

    • The diaries

    Don’t forget our other Orwell Diary blogs: his Wartime Diary, Hop-Picking Diary and The Road to Wigan Pier Diary. You can sign up to our newsletter If you’ve got any suggestions about our website(s), we’d love to hear from you – email us on katriona.lewis@mediastandardstrust.org. You can also follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook.