It’s the East Midlands Book Award tonight and I’m really excited because it’s a great opportunity for local authors to get wider recognition for their work. We covered the award with a review of all eight books in LeftLion 41 and have followed up with seven out of eight interviews online. But who is going to win?

Well this is an opportunity for me to score my first ever literary hat trick as I previously predicted that 8/1 outsider Howard Jakobson would scoop last year’s Booker Prize and that twenty-five year old Téa Obreht would take the Orange Prize for fiction with The Tiger’s Wife. For the East Midlands Book Award I’m plumping for Judith Allnatt’s The Poet’s Wife, which is why the interview hasn’t been done yet.

I think this could win for three reasons. Firstly, it was born out of an arts project that saw Judith researching local literary figures. If ever there was validation of the importance of such projects in these tough economic times, it is this. Without the project, Judith wouldn’t have spent all of those hours scrolling through the microfiche, marvelling at John Clare’s elegant and curlicued handwriting. Secondly, Allnatt is based in Northamptonshire which has been under represented in the East Midlands and so it offers some well deserved, and needed, publicity. Finally, it is a work of fiction about a poet and so is the perfect marriage between art forms. Poetry is grossly under represented on a national level and this book offers a bridge of sorts to readdress this balance. The fact that poet Ian McMillan is involved also tends to suggests that something poetry orientated may win.

But whether the judging panel will take such factors into consideration is another matter entirely as it should be judged by the content on the page. So what about the others? Let’s start with the poets first. Rosie Garner has already been recognised by McMillan, having worked on the Three Cities Project and I believe winning the competition with her poem about the ‘River.’ She’s thought of very highly locally and certainly the ‘people’s poet,’ particularly after Poetry on the Buses – Portrait of a City. If she were to win I would expect to hear a big cheer. Mark Goodwin on the other hand is a more radical poet, a real eccentric, whose collection Shod deals with a ‘shoe messiah’ and is a modern parable of the religious story. Goodwin would be my second favourite to snatch the award and has already had another collection, Back of a Vast, nominated. Which, incidentally, he prefers to Shod. Now doesn’t that tell you something about competitions…

There are two crime based novels up for the award which I would see as outside bets. Anne Zouroudi has a worldwide following due to the success of her Greek Detective series featuring the lovable Hermes Diaktoros whereas Adrian Magson’s Death on the Marais takes a similarly continental tone, being set in 1960s France. If the judges are after something more philosophical then they may plump for Stephen Baker’s Hemispheres, which is essentially the retelling of the Odyssey but set in Stockton. Although tough to read in places, it raises awareness of PTSD which could be a winning factor. For sheer beauty there is Maria Allen’s Before the Earthquake which out of all of the nominations was the one I couldn’t put down. Having featured as a Book at Bedtime and already a close runner up in the Desmond Elliot Prize, she has to be a firm favourite. Last but not least is Ann Featherstone’s The Newgate Jig, her second foray into the dark underbelly of Victorian London. Ann is slowly becoming the definitive voice of this period, trawling through the archives to create her very own version of Balzac’s comédie humaine. The language and characters are perfect and completely transport you into the period.

Although only one person will scoop the award, the coverage should help to promote their public profile and raise awareness of literature in the region. Thank you Writing East Midlands.  

The winner of the East Midlands Book Award will be announced at the Lowdham Book Festival on 20 June. For more information on other events, please see the Lowdham website.

Ps: I was wrong…it went to Mark Goodwin