The Biographers Club Prize 2008
The £2,000 Biographers’ Club Prize, sponsored by the Daily Mail, supports uncommissioned first-time writers working on a biography.
This year’s judges are Nicola Beauman, publisher of Persephone Books and author of Cynthia Asquith and Morgan: A Life of E.M. Forster, Richard Davenport-Hines whose books include biographies of Proust and Auden, and Andrew Crofts, prolific ghostwriter and author of the forthcoming novel The Overnight Fame of Steffi McBride.
Applicants should submit a proposal of no more than 20 pages, including a synopsis and 10-page sample chapter (double-spaced, numbered pages), CV, a note on the market for the book and competing literature, to the prize administrator: Anna Swan, anna@annaswan.co.uk or by post to 119A Fordwych Road, London NW2 3NJ.
The deadline for entries is 1 August 2008. Entry fee: £10 (cheques made payable to the Biographers’ Club). Further details at www.biographersclub.co.uk
The winner will be announced at the prize-giving dinner in September.
Notice Board
20th June 2008 | Shelagh Routh
Shelagh Routh is looking for a biographer to write a book about her husband who died this month aged 81. He, of course, is best known for his Candid Camera pranks in the Sixties which had the same impact on TV as Jeremy Beadle and Sacha Baron Cohen did decades later. He was also an excellent painter (viz his series of Queen Victoria riding a tightrope across waterfalls in Jamaica) and busy philanderer (eg Shell heiress Olga Deterding et al). Any biographer interested should contact the Rouths' close friend, Kristina von Merveldt on 07799 695359.
17th June 2008 | Summer Party Photos
Some photos were taken at the Summer Party. Click here to view the photos.
13th June 2008 | Diane Middlebrook
It is with regret we announce the death from cancer on 15th December of Diane Middlebrook, a distinguished biographer and great supporter of the Biographers Club. Best known for her lives of Anne Sexton (1991) and Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath (2003), she had just completed a biography of the Roman poet Ovid. She was a regular attender of club meetings when in London and in September 2003 led a discussion with the late Ben PImlott on trends in biography.
11th November 2007 | New MA in Creative Writing Non-fiction starting in January 2008
City University London is starting a pioneering new Creative Writing MA in January 2008. The two-year part-time MA is aimed at emerging writers of narrative non-fiction – including autobiography, biography, travel writing, criticism and reportage. The MA will be run mainly in the evening to allow students to work around existing commitments.
The MA will be run by award-winning author and journalist Julie Wheelwright, whose books include The Fatal Love: Mata Hari and the Myth of Women in Espionage. She has also produced documentaries for the History Channel, the BBC and Channel Four and has written and presented documentaries for BBC Radio Four. For more information, please contact the Department of Journalism and Publishing on 020 7040 8221 or by emailing journalism@city.ac.uk. Or visit www.city.ac.uk/journalism.
28th May 2007 | Congratulations to Jessie Childs
Congratulations to Jessie Childs whose Henry V111’s Last Victim has won this year’s Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography judged by Flora Fraser, Antonia Fraser, Andrew Roberts, AN Wilson and Roy Foster. The £3,000 prize, previously won by Charles Williams, Ian Kershaw, Katie Whitaker and David Gilmour, will be awarded on 14th June.
5th April 2007 | Biographers Club Prize 2006
We received a record number of entries (71) and produced our first all-women short list.
The joint prize winner Helen Smith (for ‘Edward Garnett: Midwife of Genius’ – literary catalyst and editor whose authors included D.H. Lawrence, Joseph Conrad, H.E. Bates et al) has recently signed contracts with Jonathan Cape in the UK and Farrar, Straus in the States.
One of the short-listed writers, Julia Rochester, will be published in the UK by Vision Paperbacks (for ‘Surviving Candelária’, an exposé of police brutality in Rio de Janeiro and the shocking account of the Candelária massacre of street children).
26th November 2006 | The Judges for the 2007 Prize
The judges for the 2007 prize will be Rachel Holmes,Anne Sebba and Christopher Sinclair-Stevenson.
Rachel Holmes is the biographer of Dr James Barry (2002) and Saartjie Baartman: The Hottentot Venus (2006). Formerly a Lecturer in English at the University of Sussex and Queen Mary, London University, in 1998 she left academe to join the launch team of Amazon.co.uk as Senior Editor, and became Web Site Manager of the Amazon UK site until leaving in December 2002 to write full-time. She is a literary journalist, reviewer, and occasional broadcaster on radio and television, including Newsight Review and The Culture Show. She has judged several literary prizes, including the Whitbread Book Awards and the Orange Prize for Fiction.
Anne Sebba is a biographer, journalist and former foreign correspondent with a strong interest in human rights issues and cultural affairs with an international dimension. Her books include Enid Bagnold: A Life (1986), Laura Ashley: A Life By Design (1990), Battling for News: The Rise of the Woman Reporter (1993),Mother Teresa: Beyond The Image(1998), The Exiled Collector: William Bankes and the Making of an English Country House(2004) and a forthcoming life of Jennie Jerome (2007).
Christopher Sinclair-Stevenson is a literary agent having been founded his own eponymous firm and been Managing Director of Hamish Hamilton. His books include Life of a Regiment: Gordon Highlanders (1974),Blood Royal: Illustrious House of Hanover (1979), with Alec Guiness Blessings in Disguise (1985) and Enjoy!: A Celebration of Jennifer Paterson -Tribute to a Fat Lady by Her Friends(2000).
4th November 2006 | Susan Ronald
Susan Ronald has 30 years experience in the hotel and tourism related fields in North America, Europe and Africa. She is a former finance director, company secretary and director of development for Meridien Hotels in North America. Click here to read more
5th October 2006 | The Biographers Club Prize 2006
The joint winners were Birna Helgadottir for The
Celebrated Misses Gunning about some 18th-century celebrity
sisters who gatecrash the aristocracy and Helen Smith for Edward
Garnett: Midwife of Genius , on the editor of Joseph
Conrad, D.H. Lawrence, H.E. Bates et al.
The runners-up were Julia Rochester for an account of Rio's street
children, Surviving Candelaria, Alicia Foster on
the artist Laura Knight and Susan MacDonald – on her aunt the
political hostess and daughter of Ramsay Macdonald Ishbel MacDonald
This year we received a record number of entries (71) and it was also
our first all-female short list.
27th September 2006 | Article Written by Clare Mulley
Clare Mulley, an aspiring biographer, working on the life of an extraordinary early twentieth century social campaigner, spiritualist and sometimes spy, in between the more everyday activities of her own life as a student and mother, pays tribute to our September speaker.Click here to read more
18th July 2006 | The Cambridge History Festival 2006
Derek Wilson is an historian and biographer, who specialises in the 16th century. His latest books are Charlemagne: Barbarian and Emperor (due out in paperback in August), Holbein: Portrait of an Unknown Man (2nd ed. September 06). His next title Out of the Storm: The Life and Life of Martin Luther is due for publication in 2007. He explains how he came to found the Cambridge History Festival. Click here to read more
25th May 2006 | New Article Written by Andrew Lownie
"Andrew Lownie, who has administered the Biographers’ Club Prize since its inauguration in 1999 and who is now handing over to Anna Swan, reflects on the submissions over the last seven years..." Click here to read more
2nd March 2006 | The First Article for the Biographers Club
Lindy Woodhead, one of several members of the club who have recently lecturered, on cruise liners, gives her impression of the experience. Those interested in being put forward for cruise lectures should contact Andrew Lownie. click to read more about Lindy Woodhead's artcle - Cruise Control
9th February 2006 | Official Feliks Topolski biography
The family of the artist Felix Topolski (1907-89) are looking to commission an official life. Those interested should contact Andrew Lownie at lownie@globalnet.co.uk. The life of Feliks Topolski, born in Warsaw in 1907, encompassed the variety of a Polish childhood, a friendship with George Bernard Shaw, entering Germany with the Allied troops, the Nuremberg trials, the Malayan War and a commission for Buckingham Palace. He studied art at the Warsaw Academy, and was also a cadet at the Artillery Officers' School. He arrived in London, via Paris, in 1935 to record George V's Silver Jubilee and he became a London figure and friend of George Bernard Shaw whom he painted often. Wounded in the Blitz, he was a war artist for Poland and Great Britain, spending the Second World War in the Arctic, Italy, Burma and Germany. He visited Belsen and recorded the Nuremberg trials. After the war, he was invited to India by Pandit Nehru and stayed in the east to see the end of British rule in India and the wars in Indo-China and Malaya. He spent time in America and returned to Britain, completing the Festival of Britain mural under Hungerford railway bridge (where there is now a Topolski centre) and completing a mural commission in Buckingham Palace for a corridor leading to the State Rooms.
25th January 2006 | Biographers Club News
Congratulations to our member and past speaker Hilary Spurling on winning the Whitbread Book of theYear for her Matisse biography.
Our website had its largest ever number of visitors in December. The most popular pages are the programme pages followd by talks . The most popular talks are those by Sally Cline, Hazel Bell and Angela Thirlwell and the most visited authors pages those of Neil McKenna and Sarah Bradford.
15th January 2006 | Biographers Club new members
Amanda Mackenzie Stuart and HRH Princess Michael of Kent have become members of Biographers Club. Click their name for more information...
29th December 2005 | Neil McKenna article now online
Neil McKenna's article - Researching abroad is now online. Neil McKenna's article was based on the benefits of using a local researcher. Click here to read more.
17th November 2005 | Hazel Bell talk now online
The Hazel Bell talk from November 2005 is now online. Hazel's talk was based on biographers in fiction. Click here to read more.
16th November 2005 | David Sutton talk now online
The David Sutton talk from October 2005 is now online. David's talk was based on the weird and wonderful world of copyright. Click here to read more.
