Longlists, Shortlists and Awards
Tower Hamlets shortlist 2013 Muse: Tell me, Katherine, now that Sword of Light is on the Tower Hamlets shortlist... what do you feel about awards? Katherine: To me, it's a strange mix of delight that someone somewhere has actually read my book and enjoyed it enough to nominate it for an award, coupled with anxiety that, having been catapulted into the public eye, my book will fail (that is, I will fail, because I wrote it) . And then everyone will laugh at me, my publisher will be disappointed, and I will never get another contract EVER, as long as I live... ( Muse: this is a common author whine - best to ignore her. ) Awards get books and their authors noticed, so I guess publishers quite like them. But there is not much I can do to help Sword of Light now, because I wrote it more than a year ago and my creative input stopped the moment my publisher launched it into the world. I suppose I feel a bit like a parent, watching their child perform on stage - willing my boo