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The Guardian
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Full-circle moment': Candice Carty-Williams joins judging panel as 4thWrite prize opens for entries
A short story competition run by the Guardian and the publisher 4th Estate is now open to entries from unpublished writers of colour living in the UK and Ireland. The 4thWrite prize, now in its ninth year, offers its winner £1,000, a publishing workshop at 4th Estate and publication of the winning story on the Guardian website. This year's judging panel features Candice Carty-Williams, who founded the prize while working as a marketing executive at 4th Estate before going on to publish her bestselling novel Queenie. 'Returning to 4th Estate to judge the prize I started nearly a decade ago will most likely be the most meaningful full-circle moment of my career,' she said. 'I cannot wait to see and discuss with my fellow judges how writing and stories have changed in the last nine years to reflect the world we're in now. I am both honoured and excited to get into it.' Joining Carty-Williams on the judging panel is the poet Caleb Femi, associate literary agent Monica MacSwan, athlete Jazmin Sawyers, 4th Estate publishing director Kishani Widyaratna and Guardian books commissioning editor Lucy Knight. 'It's always a joy to dive into work that challenges, moves and surprises you – and I can't wait to discover what this year's prize has in store,' said Femi. Sign up to Bookmarks Discover new books and learn more about your favourite authors with our expert reviews, interviews and news stories. Literary delights delivered direct to you after newsletter promotion MacSwan said: 'With the move away from Twitter and zines closing down, prizes are more necessary than ever for new writers of colour to make their voices heard.' The prize 'has launched the careers of some of contemporary fiction's brightest talents', she added. Writers previously recognised through the award include Bolu Babalola, the author of Love in Colour and Honey & Spice, and Guy Gunaratne, who wrote In Our Mad and Furious City and Mister, Mister. The prize 'offers a vital and important platform for emerging writers of colour across the UK and shines brilliant light on the wealth of talent out there', said Widyaratna. The competition is open for story submissions of up to 6,000 words until 8 June. Writers aged 18 and over can submit entries via the 4th Estate website. A longlist will be announced by 10 August and the shortlist by 30 September, with the winner revealed in October at a London ceremony. Last year's prize was won by Yan F Zhang for her story Fleeting Marrow, which is based on the real-life deportation of Chinese seafarers from the UK after the second world war.
RNZ News
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- RNZ News
Bookmarks with Chris Hipkins
It's time for Bookmarks where we invite interesting New Zealanders onto the show to discuss their cultural interests Today Jesse is joined in the Auckland studio by Labour leader Chris Hipkins. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
The Guardian
04-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
World Book Day: top tips for last-minute costumes
Help! It's World Book Day this week, which for parents and carers often means kitting out your child in a costume inspired by their favourite book. Some of you might have been preparing for weeks, but for everyone else, here are some tips for putting together a last-minute costume using items you might well already have at home. In terms of general advice, I would say it's a good idea to look back at Halloween costumes – a skeleton outfit could be perfect for Funnybones, or a Grim Reaper could be re-purposed as a Harry Potter cape. Consider nonfiction books as well as fiction; there's no rule that says your child has to be a well-known children's book character (my own son was an electric eel one year!) and use cardboard and lollipop sticks to make masks that resemble illustrated characters such as Greg from Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Some easy-to-put-together ideas include Tom Gates from Liz Pichon's beloved series: a child could wear their usual clothes but take a pencil and notepad full of comics they've drawn. For the titular character in Roald Dahl's George's Marvellous Medicine, normal clothes will work too - just add props such as a saucepan and a wooden spoon, or a bottle of water coloured blue. Julia Donaldson's The Smeds and the Smoos could also be a relatively simple inspiration: a child simply needs to wear all blue or red – add blue or red face paint if you like. Jenny McCann, owner of Bear Bookshop, Smethwick Getting a nearly six-year-old into a shirt and tie is not something attempted lightly so a plain white top was sacrificed to the felt tip gods for this Peter from the Secret Seven outfit. Make-your-own-badges were invaluable, likewise a dog happy to double as Scamper. It was only later we realised how inadvertently Nazi the whole get-up is. Catherine Shoard A few years back, our school thought it was being helpful by suggesting we 'only' make masks for World Book Day. Cue the usual parental arms race. Child one insisted on the Lorax. But how to create that lustrous yellow facial fuzz? Pipe cleaners, of course – hundreds, looped around a pair of old specs. Did he look like the beloved Dr Seuss critter? Possibly. Could we all claim a gold star for creativity? Absolutely! My other failsafe: a pillowcase. Just about any costume can be fashioned from one of these, with the added bonus that nothing says 'look, I made an effort' like a kid whose arms are awkwardly stuck out of a roughly hewn rectangle. And if all else fails? Dress them in blue and go full Andrex puppy with some loo roll. Ta-da, you have yourself a bona fide Mr Bump! Anna Thomson Sign up to Bookmarks Discover new books and learn more about your favourite authors with our expert reviews, interviews and news stories. Literary delights delivered direct to you after newsletter promotion You could make a simple skirt from old book pages. Make tubes by rolling up each page and thread string through holes in the top of each tube (you could use a hole punch for the holes). Add a few layers and tie them together. Or base a costume on a character that wears clothes your child already has. The main character in I Love Books, an amazing picture book by Mariajo Ilustrajo, for example, wears a white T-shirt, black trousersand orange socks. Georgia Duffy, owner of Imagined Things Bookshop, Harrogate Looking to the past can be terrific for costumes. L Frank Baum's 1900 classic The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a great inspiration, for example. Got a school summer dress, or fabric with some gingham check? Pair with a basket and dog (real or cuddly, optional), and there's your Dorothy. Meanwhile an upside down funnel and some carefully applied tin foil makes a matching Tin Man. Mr Men books are a great place to look for ideas, too – lots of them can be recreated very easily. A cardboard box, some red paint, and holes for arms makes you Mr Strong, a blue sweatshirt and lots of bandages and you're Mr Bump, while pigtails, a pair of glasses and a book can transform anyone into Little Miss Busy. Jo Zebedee, co-owner of The Secret Bookshelf in Carrickfergus
