I was delighted to be invited by Gwen Goodhew and Wendy Smedley to be the guest speaker at last night’s meeting of the Waverton Good Reads Award, near Chester. Gwen and Wendy started the scheme ten years ago and The Apothecary’s Daughter is one of the novels entered for the award.
To be eligible to enter novels must be newly published debut novels by British or Irish authors. A team of around 100 keen readers review the novels and complete review sheets. Once the readers have made a shortlist, ballot papers are sent out and the winner announced at the village fete. A prize of £1000 is awarded to the winner but, perhaps more importantly, the debut novels gain useful exposure. And it’s always good to be the first toou have discovered new writing talent!
After I talked about how The Apothecary’s Daughter came to be published there was a lively question and answer session.
To find out more about WGRA see http://www.wavertongoodread.org.uk/
