New Writing

Two UEA alumnae have been shortlisted for the 2021 Kitschies Prizes, which celebrate ‘the year’s most progressive, intelligent and entertaining fiction that contain elements of the speculative or fantastic’. The Lost Future of Pepperharrow by Natasha Pulley is shortlisted for the Red Tentacle award for the Best Novel, while Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara has been shortlisted for the Golden Tentacle for the Best Debut Novel. Natasha (pictured) graduated from the UEA MA in Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) in 2012, after which she completed a nineteen-month Daiwa Fellowship in Tokyo, Japan. Her first novel The Watchmaker of Filigree Street was published by Bloomsbury in 2015. It received a Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award. The Bedlam Stacks followed in 2017, also published by Bloomsbury, and was longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. The Lost Future of Pepperharrow was published by Bloomsbury last year, and has been followed by The Kingdoms. Deepa graduated from the MA in Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) in 2017 and is currently studying at UEA for her PhD in Creative and Critical Writing. Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line was published by Chatto & Windus last year, having already won the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize, the Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award, and the Bridport/Peggy Chapman-Andrews Award while still in manuscript. It was longlisted for the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction and the JCB Prize for Literature, and shortlisted for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award and the McKitterick Prize. The winners of the Kitschies Awards will be announced on 21 July