I was pleased and flattered to find my post on Nathanael West's Miss Lonelyhearts nominated for the 3QD Arts & Literature Prize 2015.
I was even more pleased that I was nominated by Tom over at the wonderful Wuthering Expectations blog.
There are 45 blog posts nominated and twenty of them will be shortlisted to be judged for the final prize by Jonathan Kramnick, Maynard Mack Professor of English at Yale University and author of two books, Making the English Canon (1999) and Actions and Objects from Hobbes to Richardson (2010), and many essays.
I am under no illusions that I will win as there are many excellent entries from many prestigious online publications. However, I would like to get to the shortlist and so I am shamelessly canvassing that readers who enjoyed the post on Miss Lonelyhearts go to the following link where they can cast a vote for me (or, I guess, someone else). The list is arranged alphabetically and so Vapour Trails is at the very bottom, No 45.
Post listing nominees with links to articles. The link you need to click to vote is at the bottom.
Thank you!
ADDENDUM
Here is the text a letter copied from the pages of The New York Post Dispatch.
Dear Miss Lonelyhearts,
I have been blogging for years and have at times had my blog read by literally dozens of people, some of whom have even deigned to comment there. However I have never been given any award despite my desperate need for approval.
Now I've been nominated for a prize but I feel that it will only show up how nobody really likes me and the absolute dearth of talent I possess for this undertaking.
Blogging has been the activity that has given meaning to my pathetic existence for the past number of years and I am afraid that this will only bring my wavering self-esteem issues to a crisis point.
Miss Lonelyhearts, perhaps if you published my letter some of your many readers would take pity on me and vote for me at http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2015/06/vote-for-a-nominee-for-the-3qd-arts-literature-prize-2015.html
Sharing this link may save my life, or at least my blog.
Yours in abject thanks,
Blogged down by life
Editor's note: Go to the link and vote for someone else. This guy is a 24 carat loser - Shrike
You got my vote Séamus.
ReplyDeleteIt is well deserved.
Thanks Brian!
DeleteJust voted for you, Seamus. Even though I didn't click with Miss Lonelyhearts (my fault, I know), I really enjoyed your review of the book. A tremendous tribute to West and the novella's themes.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jacqui.
DeleteTerrific - the nomination and the Miss Lonelyhearts post. I've cast my vote your way.
ReplyDeleteThanks Scott.
DeleteA vote for Vapor Trails is a vote against the logrollers and backscratchers, I say as we logroll and backscratch here. Also a vote against editors, assuming that The Millions has editors. The entry from Granta seems like open cheating.
ReplyDeleteYou have some real competition on that list, Séamus, as well as some entrants where I think "You're kidding?" - and plenty of those had editors.
It is a terrific piece that well deserves the extra readers I hope it is getting.
Thanks again Tom. I've had 200 plus page views of Miss Lonelyhearts in the past week, more than it got in the first week it was up. I haven't read all the essays but as you note there are good and bad. Looks like I'm in a very strong position to make the final twenty so then it goes to the judge, at which stage there's nothing to be done except start sending presents to Yale!
DeleteI'm so sorry for not checking in here sooner -- I don't get out very often -- as I went to vote for you just now but the poll was, of course, already long closed. Kudos to you for making the top 20 against what appear like so many among the Establishment. Splendid, superb, stellar piece on Miss Lonelyhearts. Up the Establishment's collective arses!
ReplyDeleteAh well, I did well in the public vote but didn't meet the exacting standards/tickle the fancy of the 3Quarks editors. Was great to be nominated and got some extra readers for my post.
Delete