Billy Mills 

Writer Idol gives books prizes the Simon Cowell treatment

Billy Mills: Move over Booker and Pulitzer prizes ... there's a new talent show coming to the West Cork literary festival. Writers, are you ready to face the judges?
  
  

Simon Cowell on The X Factor
Quick to judge ... Simon Cowell on The X Factor – now would-be writers can face the music on Writer Idol. Photograph: Ken McKay/TalkbackThames/Rex Features Photograph: Ken McKay/TalkbackThames / Rex F

Over the last few decades, books prizes have become commonplace and a key marketing tool for authors and publishers alike. The big awards such as the Man Booker, IMPAC, Orange and Forward are serious affairs, and the judges are generally expected to do a lot of reading before coming to their decisions. In the States, the Pulitzer prizes have a long and honourable tradition of supporting some of the most demanding writing that the country has produced.

While some readers and authors are critical of the very idea of treating literature as a competitive sport, others see these prizes as representing both valuable recognition in their own right and as an opportunity to reach a wider audience thanks to the media attention that surrounds them. You only have to look at the impact on sales of the Booker longlist novels to see why they feel that way. Indeed, some take the competitive element much further. The Poetry Slam movement is almost the Champions League of writing, with local competition winners going on to compete at national and international level. There's even a Poetry Slam World Cup!

I suppose, then, that I shouldn't have been too surprised by the content of a piece I heard on the car radio the other day about the upcoming West Cork literary festival. The festival's artistic director Denyse Woods didn't use this opportunity to talk about the programme events featuring well-known and respected poets, novelists and academics from Ireland and abroad. She even glossed over the visit of Sir Michael Parkinson. What she really wanted to tell the world about was something called Writer Idol. And, on one level at least, I can see why.

In essence, Writer Idol is a very simple idea. Potential "contestants" are invited to send in one page of their writing anonymously. On the day, the selected entries will be read by Kate Thompson to an audience which will include the "lucky" authors and a panel of judges consisting of novelist Anita Shreve, commissioning editor Suzanne Baboneau and literary agent Marianne Gunne-O'Connor. Each judge will raise their hand when they've heard enough; if all three hands are raised, the reading will stop immediately. In the words of the festival website, "Think Graham Norton's red chair, with anonymity!" And while the West Cork example is the first time I've come across Writer Idol, it seems that the Boston book festival is set to follow Cork's example later this year.

In a world where getting your manuscript off the slush pile and into the hands of a publisher's reader is, by all accounts, close to impossible, the attraction of the Writer Idol idea isn't hard to fathom. Just like the hopefuls queuing up for the pop music equivalents, the writers who submit work will, for the most part, be committed to what they do and genuinely interested in a career in their chosen art. Unlike would-be pop idols, these writers are also well-protected by the anonymous nature of the competition.

Indeed, if there is cause to worry about any of the participants in this contest, it's more likely to be the winners than the losers. The festival website is careful to avoid any mention of prizes; there's no book contract on offer, for example. The best you can hope for when you send off your page of typescript is that the three wise women will hear it through to the end. Maybe it's better that way. Given the pernicious effect on contemporary popular music of Pop Idol and its brethren with their disposable "stars", a new one every year, Writer Idol's reluctance to promise fame and riches may well be the best thing about it. Well, you can't blame me for hoping, can you?

 

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