Honorary Chair Tina Brown, and Co-Chairs Dylan Jones and Piers Morgan, hosted the Gala Benefit at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, NYC, for guests including President William J Clinton, Sir Harold Evans, Arundhati Roy, Keith Richards, Tony Bennett and Gay Talese.
Bill Clinton presented Keith Richards with an Award for Distinguished biography.
(Picture, by Richard Young / Rex Features, shows Tina Brown, Keith Richards and Bill Clinton.)
There were over 300 entries in the British GQ Norman Mailer College Writing Award. The submissions were whittled down to a shortlist of six, and the winning entry, entitled ‘Sticking to the Letter’, was chosen by a panel of judges meeting in London comprising David Nicholls, bestselling author and screenwriter; the Editor of the TLS Sir Peter Stothard; novelist Alan Hollinghurst; novelist and Contributing Editor of GQ Tony Parsons; Condé Nast Managing Director and bestselling author Nicholas Coleridge; GQ Editor Dylan Jones; GQ Features Director Jonathan Heaf; distinguished literary agent Ed Victor; and Olivia Cole, Literary Editor of GQ.
Sir Peter Stothard, remarking on the winning entry, said “Sue’s was a genuine short essay - on the message from war to peace, and thus the one this judge would choose for a first prize in the Mailer name. A worthy winner indeed”, while David Nicholls praised its “controlled emotion” and Alan Hollinghurst celebrated its “absence of cliché”.
Sue Stoat is an MA student studying creative writing at Edge Hill University in Lancashire. Her prize comprises an all-expenses paid month at the Norman Mailer Writers Colony, a residential educational centre based at the legendary author’s former home in Provincetown, Massachusetts, a cheque for £1000, and her work will be published in a future issue of Britain’s leading men’s magazine.
“Mailer believed there was very little difference between fiction and non-fiction, remarking “I can’t bear non-fiction unless it reads like fiction, by which I mean there’s a sense of presence, you create an atmosphere, the people are as real as their characters as in novels, and the story is given to you, which is one of the great benefits of non-fiction.” The work of our winner exemplifies this spirit and intent,” commented Dylan Jones, Editor British GQ.
Finalists in the British GQ College Writing Award were Radhika Sanghani, Mark O’Brien, Michael Gower, Philippa Todhunter and Daniel Hitchens.
