New Writing

Two UEA alumnae have been shortlisted for this year’s British Book Awards, also known as the Nibbies. Christie Watson is nomined in Non-Fiction: Narrative category for The Language of Kindness: A Nurse’s Story (Chatto & Windus), while Imogen Hermes Gowar is nominated in the Debut Novel category for The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock (Harvill Secker). Christie (pictured) trained as a paediatric nurse at Great Ormond Street Hospital and worked in nursing for twenty years. She graduated from the UEA MA in Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) in 2007. Her debut novel, Tiny Sunbirds Far Away, was published in 2011 and won the Costa First Novel Award. Her second novel Where Women Are Kings was published by Quercus in 2013. Imogen graduated from UEA with a BA in Archaeology, Anthropology and Art History in 2012 and from the MA in Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) in 2014. The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, and was longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and chosen as the Literature nominee for the Breakthrough Award at the South Bank Sky Arts Awards. An early draft of her novel, which she began while completing her MA, was a finalist in the MsLexia First Novel Competition in 2015 and was shortlisted for the inaugural Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers’ Award. Organised by The Bookseller, the winners of the Nibbies will be announced on 13th May.