Latest news with #Non-Fiction
Daily Mirror
a day ago
- Health
- Daily Mirror
Author inspired by 'most amazing story' on Mirror front page wins top award
Dr Rachel Clarke wrote 'The Story of a Heart' after our story about Max Johnson and Keira Ball showed 'humanity at its finest' - she has now been awarded a top literary prize The best seller inspired by our 'Change the Law for Life' campaign has won a top literary prize after showing 'humanity at its finest'. Dr Rachel Clarke wrote 'The Story of a Heart' after reading The Mirror 's front page about Max Johnson and Keira Ball. Max, now 17, of Winsford, Cheshire, and his heart donor Keira Ball, who died aged nine, had the new organ donor law in England named after them. Five years after its introduction in May, 2020, it is credited with helping to save and transform hundreds of lives every year. Dr Clarke won the Women's Prize for Non-Fiction after her book "left a deep and long-lasting impression" on the judging panel. Today she recalled how she was inspired by our front page story which told how the siblings of Keira listened to their sister's heart beating in the chest of Max after his transplant in 2017. She said: "It was the most amazing story I had read in my life and I thought: 'I would love to tell it in a book." It has won plaudits and critical acclaim around the world. Dr Clarke recalled: "It was on the front page of the Mirror as they changed the law on organ donation. Keira's mum read the story and she sent a message to Max's mum. It simply read: 'I think your son has my daughter's heart and it is the most beautiful heart in the world'. "That started a chain of events which culminated in Keira's family meeting Max and with a stethoscope listening to her heart beating in his chest. And when I read that story I thought 'that is the most amazing story I have ever read in my life." She urged people to think about their organ donor wishes, adding: "The statistics are stark. We have 8,000 people in Britain waiting for an organ, 250 children in peril. It is through Max's story that you can make vivid the desperate need for organs. The fact that if only we talked about our organ donor decisions, we could save the lives of children. "Keira was an incredibly caring little girl. Her dad Joe said she gave her last sweets to her sisters, she loved animals and if she saw a snail in the road she moved it so no one stood on it. "Incredibly, she was in intensive care when her little sister Katelyn, then 11, turned to her doctor and said: 'Can we donate Keira's organs? I know it is what she would have wanted'. I interviewed the doctor who said that had never happened before. "Her dad Joe said yes. It was something that Keira would have loved, to save four lives. There is endless bad news about the NHS struggling with waiting lists. But behind each successful heart transplant there is an army of surgeons, doctors, nurses and specialists. "I found the absolute best of human nature, they would work through the night, they tucked a teddy under Keira's arm. This was not just exemplary medical care, it was humanity at its finest." Dr Clarke will receive £30,000 in prize money. Kavita Puri, chair of judges, said: "Humanity just shines out. It is a really remarkable book and will be read for years to come." Max was nine when he received the heart of Keira, who tragically lost her life in a car accident near her home in Barnstaple, Devon. Despite his tender years, he asked that she be included in the name for the new legislation, and it was named Max and Keira's Law. Opt out means people no longer have to carry an organ donor card. All adults in England are considered as having agreed to donate their own organs when they die unless they opt out. Last year, deemed consent was applied in 1109 cases. Max 'never forgets' his debt to Keira and is still in touch with her parents Joe and Loanna, and her siblings Bradley, 15, Katelyn, 19, and 20-year-old Keely. Loanna, 40, said that her daughter's name 'will live on forever' in the new law. She added: "So much good has come from that devastating loss for us, she has benefited so many people by donating her organs. "When I hear of Max and Keira's Law, I know that it took the two of them to make that happen." Max's dad Paul, 51, a civil servant, added: "Max has grown into a young man, with a weekend job, GCSEs to sit and a driving licence. Our thoughts never stray far from Keira and the Ball family, because none of this would have happened without them."
Wales Online
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Wales Online
Queen Camilla praises literary prize for championing women authors
Queen Camilla praises literary prize for championing women authors Camilla made a surprise appearance at an open-air event (Image: Anadolu, Anadolu Agency via Getty Images ) The Queen has hailed a leading fiction competition for bringing female voices from the "margins" to the "very centre" of the literary world. Camilla made a surprise appearance at an open-air event celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Women's Prize for Fiction and met the shortlisted authors for this year's award. Writer Kate Mosse, co-founder of the prize, described Camilla as a "genuine reader" who has supported the project, and said about the royal appearance: "If you're going to lay on the Queen, if it's not Beyonce, it's got to be the actual Queen." The Queen stopped broadcaster Louise Minchin, who was hosting a discussion, to address the audience in Bedford Square gardens in central London, and told guests that 1995, when the prize was launched, was a significant year for women. While women were winning a Nobel Prize and piloting a space shuttle for the first time in 1995, she said things were "bleaker" in the literary world with only 9% of female authors shortlisted for major prizes despite writing 60% of novels. Camilla said Mosse led the founding of the Women's Prize for Fiction as "they believed that women's stories should be truly heard, understood and honoured; and that it was time to disprove Virginia Woolf's famous statement that ' often a woman'". Article continues below She added: "They did this by establishing the Women's Prize for Fiction and its instantly recognisable statuette, 'The Bessie'. This simple, but radical, step brought the female voice from the margins of the literary world to its very centre." Camilla chatted to the six shortlisted authors – Aria Aber, Sanam Mahloudji, Elizabeth Strout, Nussaibah Younis, Miranda July and Yael van der Wouden. Younis joked with the Queen and made the group laugh when she said: "We're trying to take each other out, the champagne glasses are spiked, there could be one left standing." After speaking to Camilla, she said about her fellow shortlisted writers: "I have read all of the books and I'm blown away. They're funny and so sexy and very erotic." The Queen was then introduced to the six shortlisted authors for the Women's Prize for Non-Fiction, including singer-songwriter and rapper Neneh Cherry, whose debut book, A Thousand Threads tells the story of her career. "I wrote a memoir, a book about my life," she told Camilla. "It took more than four years to write it and I'm still slightly recovering. It's out there now, I have let it go, it's out in the world." The Queen told Claire Mulley, whose Agent Zo tells the story of the Polish wartime resistance fighter Elzbieta Zawacka: "I think I will put that on my holiday reading list." And she delighted author Chloe Dalton by telling her she had read her memoir Raising Hare about swapping the rat race for a rural life. Article continues below "Thank you so much, I am honoured," she replied.
