Book Review Competition 2025: The Results

Recently, our popular review blog, Everybody’s Reviewing, passed half a million readers. To celebrate this milestone, Everybody’s Reviewing and the Centre for New Writing ran a book review competition. The competition was open to all undergraduate and postgraduate students in the School of Arts, Media & Communication at the University of Leicester. You can read more about it here. 

The standard of entries was very high indeed - every entry we received was professional, well-written and eminently publishable. Results of the competition are below. First prize is £100 in gift vouchers. There are also two second prizes of £25 each in vouchers, plus three "Honourable Mentions." All winning entries will be published on Everybody's Reviewing over the next week or so. Congratulations to everyone involved!

Results

1st Prize: Lee Wright, for his review of On Agoraphobia, by Graham Caveney

Runner-Up: Mellissa Flowerdew-Clarke, for her review of The Book of Guilt, by Catherine Chidgey

Runner-Up: Iain Minney, for his review of The Day of the Triffids, by John Wyndham

Honourable Mention: Wiktoria Borkowska, for her review of I Who Have Never Known Men, by Jacqueline Harpman

Honourable Mention: Kathy Hoyle, for her review of Cuddy, by Benjamin Myers

Honourable Mention: Kimaya Patil, for her review of Fourth Wing, by Rebecca Yarros

Book Review Competition 2025: Call for Entries!

Recently, our popular review blog, Everybody’s Reviewing, passed half a million readers. To celebrate this milestone, Everybody’s Reviewing and the Centre for New Writing are running a book review competition. 

The competition is open to all undergraduate and postgraduate students in the School of Arts, Media & Communication at the University of Leicester. First prize is £100 in Amazon gift vouchers. There will also be two second prizes of £25 each in vouchers. All entries will be considered for publication on the website. 

All you have to do is write a short book review (200-400 words) of a book you’ve read recently and enjoyed. The review should be positive overall. The book you choose doesn’t have to be new: it can be any work of fiction, creative non-fiction or poetry from any time, by any author. Please include a short (2-line) biography of yourself at the end of the review. 

Please send your entries (no more than one per student) to this email address: everybodysreviewing@gmail.com. You can also use the same email address for any queries you have about the competition. 

The deadline for submissions is 9am on Monday 23 June 2025. 

End of Spring Term News

It's the end of the Spring term, so we thought we'd share some recent news from Creative Writing at Leicester. Wishing everyone a good Easter break!

Firstly, we'd like to welcome bestselling author Adele Parks, who has joined the School of Arts as Visiting Professor. She gave a guest workshop on Wednesday 15 March. We've also recently had brilliant guest talks and workshops by Barbara Cooke, Farhana Shaikh and Amirah Mohiddin. There are some great forthcoming guest events next term too. You can see a complete list here.  

New Walk Editions, co-edited from the Centre for New Writing by Nick Everett, is publishing its first full-length poetry collection, Alan Jenkins’s The Ghost Net, on 8 May. The launch event, with readings by Jenkins and by Adrian Buckner and Tuesday Shannon, will take place at Five Leaves Bookshop in Nottingham at 7pm on Wednesday 24 May.  For more details of the book and the event, please see here.

Congratulations to all students and graduates who performed at the Creative Writing Student Showcase on Monday 27 March, which was part of the wonderful Literary Leicester Festival 2023: Laurie Cusack, Kathy Hoyle, Laura Besley, Nina Walker, Sara Waheed and Karen Powell-Curtis. Thanks to everyone who came to the event and helped make it such a lovely evening. 

Congratulations to PhD student Joe Bedford and MA Creative Writing student Laura Besley, both of whom have been longlisted for the Welkin Writing Prize!

As followers of this blog will know, Joe Bedford also has a debut novel, A Bad Decade for Good People, forthcoming from Parthian Books in June. You can read more about it here. His story "Peak Jack" has been published by Flights Journal here. 

MA Creative Writing student Madeleine Bell has written a review of Mona Awad's novel Bunny for Everybody's Reviewing here. 

As well as being longlisted for the Welkin Prize, Laura Besley's story "Vernacular" has been published by 50-Word Stories here. She has written reviews for Everybody's Reviewing here and here and here. 

MA Creative Writing student Sushma Bragg has written a review of Lionel Shriver's novel We Need to Talk about Kevin for Everybody's Reviewing here. 

Laurie Cusack is publishing the book of short stories he wrote during his PhD in Creative Writing. The book is called The Mad Road, and will be published by Roman Books in August 2023. More details to follow! Laurie has also written a review for Everybody's Reviewing here. 

Congratulations to BA English and Creative Writing graduate Shae Davies, whose stories "The Trung Sisters" and "Maria Ressa" have been published in Bedtime Stories: Amazing Asian Tales from the Past (Scholastic, 2022). 

Sam Dawson, MA Creative Writing graduate, has had his short story "Symphony no.14" published by Syncopation Literary Journal here. 

Congratulations to PhD Creative Writing student Kathy Hoyle, whose work was longlisted for the Bath Award for Novella-in-Flash. 

PhD student Lucretia McCarthy is editing a chapbook of life writing called Lives in Conversation. You can find the submission details here. Lucretia hosted and interviewed the experimental life writing author Joanna Walsh during this year's Literary Leicester Festival. 

BA English student Helen Schofield has written a review of Saint Maybe by Anne Tyler for Everybody's Reviewing here. 

Congratulations to Jane Simmons, PhD Creative Writing student, who has been longlisted for the National Poetry Competition. She also read a poem called "Poem in Which My Father Does Not Die Young" at the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival in November. The poem was longlisted in the Mslexia poetry competition. She has accepted an invitation to Mimi Khalvati’s poetry retreat on Crete in June. She wrote a review for Everybody's Reviewing here. 

Lisa Williams, MA Creative Writing graduate, has had her flash story "The Weekly Shop" published in Friday Flash Fiction here. She also wrote a review for Everybody's Reviewing here. 

MA Creative Writing student Gift Yusuf has written a review of Purple Hibiscus for Everybody's Reviewing here. 

Summer News 2022

Kit de Waal, photograph by Justin David

Since our last news post (Recent Creative Writing Student Success), a lot has happened, so here's a Summer update ...

Firstly, we'd like to welcome the brilliant Kit de Waal to Creative Writing at Leicester, who's going to be the University's first Jean Humphreys Writer in Residence. You can read more about this story here.

On Tuesday 7 June, the Centre for New Writing (in conjunction with Literary Leicester) were delighted to welcome Amitav Ghosh, author of The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (2016) and The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis (2022), and a panel of experts including Professor Caroline Upton and Professor Mark Williams to discuss the climate emergency.

Next, some wonderful book news: Laurie Cusack, UoL PhD Creative Writing graduate, is going to have his book of short stories, The Mad Road, published by Roman Books, in 2023/4, as part of their Stretto Fiction series. The Mad Road features stories written by Laurie during his PhD. Current PhD Creative Writing student Joe Bedford has had his novel, A Bad Decade for Good People, accepted for publication by Parthian Books in 2023. You can read more about it in The Bookseller here. Congratulations to both Laurie and Joe!  

New Walk Editions, which is co-edited by Nick Everett, has published two new pamphlets: Hugo Williams, The West Pier, and Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, Ghalib, A Diary, Delhi 1857-1858. You can see details on the publisher's website here. 

Congratulations to Karen Powell, who recently passed her PhD in Creative Writing. Her thesis is called Bloodlines: Exploring Family History in Poetry. 

Congratulations too to MA Creative Writing student Isobel Copley, who won second prize in the Anansi Archive Spring 2022 Short Story Competition. You can read her award-winning story, "Just a Few Seconds," here.

Meanwhile, PhD Creative Writing student Lee Wright's flash fiction "Dick Ridgway's Shoes" is published in the first issue of the Leicester Literary Review. "Mask," a poem by MA Creative Writing graduate Constantine, has been published in Mad Hearts 2022. MA Creative Writing graduate Lisa Williams has published a short story, "Sue Morecambe in 3b," in Unfortunately Literary Magazine here. Tracey Foster's poem, "False Memory," has been published by Mausoleum Press here. Tracey has also written a review of Leicester University's "Let's Ride Leicester Literary Tour" for Everybody's Reviewing here. PhD Creative Writing student Paul Taylor-McCartney has also written a review for Everybody's Reviewing here.  

And finally, speaking of Everybody's Reviewing, the site has now passed 200,000 readers, while this website, Creative Writing at Leicester, has passed 100,000 readers! Congratulations and thanks to everyone - students, readers, reviewers, bloggers, editors, authors - involved. You can now see a complete index of author interviews on Everybody's Reviewing here, and a complete index of featured authors on Creative Writing at Leicester here. Many thanks to PhD students Mathew Lopez-Bland and Chloe Myers for their hard work in compiling these indexes. 

Wishing everyone a great Summer, and do keep in touch!

Everybody's Reviewing passes 150,000 views!

 

Our sister website, Everybody's Reviewing, has now passed 150,000 readers!

Everybody's Reviewing promotes books and reading through book reviews, event reviews and author interviews. It has published 100s of reviews and dozens of author interviews over the last few years. As the name suggests, anybody and everybody can contribute reviews to the site, and the reviews can be of any book, new or old. 

To mark the milestone the site has just passed, Everybody's Reviewing is now inviting submissions for a new strand on the blog: that is, articles about "A Book That Changed Me."

For this new strand, Everybody's Reviewing is asking for short articles about any book that has had a deep impact on your life, your way of thinking, your way of seeing the world. Articles should talk about the book and the impact it had on you. As Oscar Wilde may or may not have said, "All criticism is autobiography."

Your article should be between 50-400 words in length, generally positive and sent to everybodysreviewing[at]gmail[dot]com. See also About & Submit for further information.

Finally, many thanks to everyone in our wonderful community - readers, reviewers, authors, editors - who have helped Everybody's Reviewing reach this amazing milestone.

Everybody's Reviewing Passes 100,000 views

Everybody's Reviewing, the review blog run by the Centre for New Writing at the University of Leicester, has just passed 100,000 views! Its huge readership includes people from the East Midlands region, the UK and internationally. 

The site was set up in 2014, in conjunction with Everybody's Reading Festival in Leicester, aiming to provide a space for readers to share their enthusiasms. It's a democratic review website, where readers of all ages and experience can share positive reviews of books or events they have enjoyed. 

Since 2014, it has gone from strength to strength. It has published 100s of reviews.  It has provided a forum for 100s of new and experienced reviewers to publish their reviews. It has helped showcase commercially-published, independently-published and self-published books, as well as exhibitions and performances, by new, up-and-coming and established writers. There have been numerous guest editors, gaining work experience in editing and website curation.  

If you'd like to get involved with Everybody's Reviewing, you can read more about it, and find contact details here. 

Congratulations to all - readers, reviewers, authors, editors alike - on reaching this major landmark! 

Interviews with Writers

MA Creative Writing students Lee Wright and Sandra Pollock have recently been interviewing well-known writers about their work. The interviews, which have been published on Everybody's Reviewing, afford fascinating insights into writers' processes, inspirations, research and experiences. The interviews are part of Everybody's Reviewing ongoing series, and represent an excellent resource for students, writers and readers alike. Below are links to some of them:

Interview with Alison Moore
Interview with Rob Palk
Interview with Hannah Vincent
Interview with Kerry Hadley-Pryce
Interview with Matthew Broughton
Interview with Tony Williams
Interview with Hannah Stevens
Interview with Ray Connolly
Interview with Rod Duncan
Interview with Jonathan Bate
Interview with Siobhan Logan
Interview with Lyndon Mallet

There are other, earlier interviews with writers and artists on the site as well. These include:

Interview with Kim Slater
Interview with Helene Cardona
Interview with Melissa Studdard 
Interview with Natalie Beech
Interview with Jess Green
Interview with Shaindel Beers
Interview with Kershia Field
Interview with Dan Wallbank
Interview with Alex Bliss
Interview with Jonathan Taylor
Interview with Darius Degher
Interview with Robert Richardson
Interview with Karen Stevens

Review by Annalise Garrett of "The End" ed. Ashley Stokes

It is inevitable that there will be a moment in our lives where we will think the end is near, whether the thought is triggered boarding a plane, watching a loved one die of old age or an accident, or even those close calls that make you question how you survived such an event. Fifteen Endings to Fifteen Paintings is a project by Nicolas Ruston to explore how an art form can operate through different media, as described in the introduction of the book The End, edited by Ashley Stokes. The book consists of fifteen interpretations by writers who have chosen one painting each by Ruston. Each painting is ambiguous with few hints towards the genre of the short story that follows it. 

Every chapter captures the emotional response of its writer, inspired by a black and white etching by Ruston. ‘The End’ is first seen as a large, dominating white text situated in the centre of each painting, and is also the central theme for the fifteen narratives that follow each painting. Fifteen detailed, uncomfortable, thought-provoking narratives present a multitude of emotions. Some paintings are much clearer than others in that they present us with a familiar object, hinting what the story that follows will entail. Each painting is then crafted into words, as it were, to arouse feelings of anxiety, or nostalgia in the reader, or even perhaps to draw the reader into the writer’s paranoia and vision of ‘The End’.

There, of course, are chapters you connect with and are more drawn to than others – paintings and stories that speak to your unconscious mind, your own anxiety and experience with more power than others. There were times where I felt suffocated, uncomfortable when reading certain stories. The stories vary in style and content. The power behind chosen sentence structure and word choice changed my mood and at times I had to put the book down to walk away for a moment before returning to complete the story. Even now I am reminded of the stress I felt on one particular interpretation of a painting. Each story, each memory presented a new thought, a new location, a new passage to the end of something, whether it is life or opinion, whether it is the narrator’s life or someone they are observing. Something ends, even if it is the fictional story itself.

On finishing each story, my attention was drawn back to the beginning of the chapter – the image of ‘The End’. At times the first few lines of a story directly connected image to text, or sometimes it was the final sentence or idea, or even the story as a whole. Back and forth I flicked from painting to word, from chapter to chapter; I sometimes understood the connections, and sometimes I was so caught in the narrative I forgot the painting. There are recurrent themes – such as reference to someone dying, something or someone leaving, or even a habit abandoned. In this way, the reader is teased by the notion of the end throughout. I felt a constant anticipation to find out what will end, who will end and even why.

When each story ended I found myself back to comparing the painting to the words, or the memory, the narrative, the character or setting. Stokes is right in saying the book never ends and you will re-read it: I have read it twice and I want to read it again. When walking in the street or around the house I picture my surroundings like the painting, a black and white etching telling me a story, an end; I text my family and friends more often now than before. The End: Fifteen Endings to Fifteen Paintings made me think about my situation, my thoughts, and I hope others look at these painting by Ruston and their interpreters’ stories. 


About the reviewer



Annalise is a student in her third year at the University of Leicester, studying BA English. She is currently on an Erasmus year abroad at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. Outside of her studies Annalise paints and writes as a hobby, hoping to use her degree to work towards a career within the art industry. 

Review by Ariane Dean of "Trysting" by Emmanuelle Pagano

When looking back on any relationship, whether it be with a partner or a much-loved friend, there are small moments that may seem insignificant, or may seem hugely important, but that nevertheless stay with us long after that person has left our lives. Emmanuelle Pagano’s book, Trysting, is a love song to the small moments, whether they are good or bad. Not so much a collection of short stories, but gathered snippets from people’s lives, written first in French and entitled Nouons-nous, it has since been translated into English by Jennifer Higgins and Sophie Lewis. The book is published in English by And Other Stories, and in the original French by P.O.L.

Every passage is short, the longest being around a page and half, the shortest just one line. This approach gives one the feeling of dipping into someone’s memories, exploring their past, and examining the responses that they may not have given at the time. Each piece is beautifully crafted, and even the bad times are recounted in a steady, calm manner, providing reflection and peace to experiences of great emotion.  The little tales are deeply nostalgic, a glimpse inside the mind of a stranger.

What I adored about this book was that nearly all the passages were non-gender specific. The stories are told in first person, and while they reference pronouns for their partner, the speaker tells little about themselves, enabling the reader to easily input their own personality and experiences into the story. Sometimes it feels like a friend confessing something they had long kept bottled up, other times it is something you yourself had half forgotten. Each passage works in a new object, place, or time, and finds new meaning in simplicity.

Although the stories are unrelated, there is a strong sense of them being tied together, with an underlying theme of the strengths and weaknesses of human nature. The people in these stories seem very real – they are dealing with ordinary worries and loves. However, Pagano’s beautiful writing and the incredible translation makes them seem vastly more important. There are lines that stayed with me for a long time after I had finished reading, and sections that I read aloud to my partner that conveyed ideas far better than I ever could.

My final thoughts on Trysting are that it was unexpectedly comforting. I had expected after the first few stories to find them sad, a little heart-breaking. Dipping in and out and reading a few little stories every now and then, I discovered that the book makes one feel much less lonely in traversing the difficult points in human relationships. Emmanuelle Pagano’s calm, measured approach to the uneasy things that could be made dramatic far simpler, and I closed the book feeling surprisingly much better than when I went in.


About the reviewer
Ariane Dean is a third year student at the University of Leicester, studying English. She has written theatre and comedy reviews for Buxton Fringe Festival over the last three years, and is working on editing past NaNoWriMo attempts to try and make them readable.