2009 BBC National Short Story Award winner

The winner of the 2009 BBC National Short Story Award is Kate Clanchy for The Not-Dead and the Saved
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Pan Macmillan launches Peter James app

"With a unique series design, the Peter James app features special content exclusive to the iPhone app edition of Dead Tomorrow. Dead Simple, the first of the Roy Grace series, is bundled in as a free ebook. The app will also have a coverflow feature allowing users to browse and buy the other titles in the Roy Grace series. The Peter James app provides many extra features, including:

- a situation call from DS Roy Grace himself
- Peter James's research notes and colour photographs
- an extensive author interview
- previously unseen edited (by Maria Rejt) manuscript pages from Dead Tomorrow showing how the book has evolved from first draft

Coinciding with the paperback publication of Dead Tomorrow, advertising tagging the Peter James app is running on London buses, with posters across buses in the West End, the City and central London. Produced in collaboration with Missing Ink Studios and Things Made Out of Other Things,

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John Llewellyn Rhys Prize 2009 winner - Evie Wyld

"29-year-old Evie Wyld saw off competition from an exceptional shortlist which included the Booker winner Aravind Adiga and Orange Prize winner Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to win the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize 2009 with her book After the Fire, a Still Small Voice. The novel, which was published to rave reviews in August 2009, is set in eastern Australia and tells a story of fathers and sons, their wars and the things that they will never know about each other. Following the collapse of his marriage, Frank retreats to a small costal community in an attempt to build a new life for himself, away from the horrors of his violent past. Frank's story is set against the struggles of his own father, Leon, who forty years earlier, is forced to depart from life working in his family's suburban cake shop to face horrors of his own in the war in Vietnam. Wyld, who was named one of Granta's New Voices of 2008, received her cheque for GBP5,000 at a ceremony at the Century Club in Piccadilly" Evie Wyld's website

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Costa Book Awards 2009 Shortlists announced

The Costa Book Awards 2009 Shortlists have been announced:

Costa First Novel Award

* The Finest Type of English Womanhood by Rachel Heath
* John the Revelator by Peter Murphy
* Beauty by Raphael Selbourne
* The Girl with Glass Feet by Ali Shaw

Costa Novel Award

* Family Album by Penelope Lively
* Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
* The Elephant Keeper by Christopher Nicholson
* Brooklyn by Colm Toibin

Costa Biography Award

* The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius by Graham Farmelo
* The Music Room by William Fiennes
* Coda by Simon Gray
* Dancing to the Precipice by Caroline Moorehead

Costa Poetry Award

* Angels Over Elsinore by Clive James
* One Eye'd Leigh by Katharine Kilalea
* Darwin: A Life in Poems by Ruth Padel
* A Scattering by Christopher Reid

Costa Children's Award

* Solace of the Road by Siobhan Dowd
* Troubadour by Mary Hoffman
* The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness
* Guantanamo Boy by Anna Perera
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Wordsworth Editions is set to release Ulysses in January 2010

Helen Trayler, Managing Director of Wordsworth Editions has been quoted as saying, "This title I feel is my greatest achievement for Wordsworth, and I am really quite proud of myself." The 1932 edition of the book will be available for £1.99 with notes and introduction by Professor Cedric Watts, from 4 January 2010. Helen Trayler wrote to the Joyce Estate to ask if "there was any possibility that we could come to some arrangement" before the book goes public in 2012. Joyce, who is notoriously protective of his grandfather's work, responded by asking Trayler to "give him the right reasons" for Wordsworth to be given access. Among other reasons, Trayler said: "I told him I have always wanted to do Ulysses but felt that if I could do it before it became public domain, I would capture the market with my edition." Wordsworth is using a painting inspired by the novel, by talented Irish artist Jonathan Barry, for the book's cover image, showing Halfpenny Bridge in Dublin. There are at least 18 editions of Ulysses, although several of them - including the 1932 version, are out of print in the U.K. Both Penguin's £9.99 paperback and the £12.99 hardback produced by Everyman's Library Classics are the revised 1960's version

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Wellcome Trust Book Prize 2009 winner

"A thoughtful and moving book that takes the reader on a journey into dementia has won the first GBP25,000 Wellcome Trust Book Prize. The prize, which is in its inaugural year, is open to outstanding works of fiction and non-fiction on the theme of health and medicine. Andrea Gillies's book 'Keeper: Living with Nancy - a journey into Alzheimer's' (Short Books) - which is about the author's decision to take on the full-time care of her mother-in-law, an Alzheimer's sufferer - beat a shortlist of five other books. The diverse shortlist featured both factual accounts and gripping novels on broad subject matter from a thriller set in a US laboratory to real life accounts of living with illness. 'Keeper' is a very humane and honest exploration of living with Alzheimer's giving an illuminating account of the disease itself. Jo Brand, comedienne and former psychiatric nurse chaired the judging panel and made the announcement at an awards ceremony at the Wellcome Collection, London. She said: "Andrea Gillies's account of living with Alzheimer's is the perfect fusion of narrative with enough memorable science not to choke you. It's a fantastic book - down to earth and darkly comic in places. The judges found it compelling". Clare Matterson, Director of Medicine, Society and History at the Wellcome Trust, added: "The prize aims to examine the links between medicine, culture and society by celebrating excellent writing and bringing it to the attention of a broad and varied audience". Jo Brand' judging panel included BBC science journalist Quentin Cooper, Welsh poet and non-fiction writer Gwyneth Lewis, physician and author Raymond Tallis and Richard Barnett, expert in the history of modern medicine"

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Jeanette Winterson: 'You shouldn't grow up in public, it's a really bad idea'

"After decades of creating fiction, Jeanette Winterson found herself too depressed to write before the idea for her latest children's stories provided salvation. She talks to Nicolette Jones about her goddaughters, stern mother and making peace with the past. Interview by Nicolette Jones. The Independent

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