You might remember that one of the goals I successfully met this year was to submit a novel to the Australian/Vogel Literary Award contest. I did it – albeit a novel that I think needs a lot of revision, but at least a full verison exists thanks to the deadline of the contest – and the act of sending in that manuscript really meant a lot to me. And I hope to enter the Vogel with a new novel every year until I can’t (which, with an upper age limit of 35, is a sad short few years away).

Anyway, last week the winner of this year’s Vogel was announced. From the 200+ manuscripts they received (and read, between just four judges – what a lot of reading), the winner was Andrew Croome, who wrote a novel titled Document Z based on the events of the Petrov affair here in Australia in the 1950s. If you’re interested, you can read an extract from the novel here.

A couple of things about Andrew Croome’s background and experience have left me feeling a little reassured. First of all, this novel was the first he actually completed – he’d had a few false starts but this was the first manuscript he got all the way to the end of. That’s encouraging, somehow. He also admitted to doing something that I’ve done (but never admitted to):

I did all the nerdy things like go into the book store and look to where my book will be on the shelf so it certainly is hugely exciting.

Yes, I’ll admit that when I’m in my favourite bookshops I do look at the section on the shelf to see where my future books will sit. I’d rather think of it as “positive thinking” than “nerdy”, but in any case I’ve decided that a surname starting with “K” (as mine does!) is a good middle-of-the-shelf kind of place for a book.

The big difference between me and Andrew Croome is that he’s studying (or has studied, the article I read didn’t make it clear if he’d finished) creative writing – up to PhD level. I’m still undecided as to whether studying creative writing is the way to go and while I (hopefully) finish my MEd next year I can postpone the decision for another couple of semesters at least. There are definitely plenty of published writers out there who’ve never studied creative writing (and a fair few who haven’t even set foot inside a university, I guess) so it’s clearly no must.

In any case, congratulations to Andrew Croome and I look forward to finding him between other “C”-surnamed authors on the bookshop shelves sometime next year.