Twenty-seven authors were handed cheques this week courtesy of the Society of Authors at a ceremony held in the plush, flamingo-inhabited Kensington Roof Gardens.
The prizes, which include the Somerset Maugham, Eric Gregory and Betty Trask awards, were handed out by former yachtswoman, author and SA chair Clare Francis, but not before she had delivered a sharp broadside to Arts Minister Alan Howarth on the subject of New Labours commitment to Public Lending Rights. Howarth, who had been due to grace the ceremony, was mysteriously absent, apparently obeying a three-line whip. Or maybe the speech had just been leaked to him.
Luckily, novelist and playwright Michael Frayn was on hand to lighten the atmosphere in a speech which argued for the necessity of prizes to boost writers delicate self-esteem.
According to Frayn, you cant rely on friends for praise and encouragement: he recalled the words of one pal, who broke decades of silence in order to confide to the author that he very much enjoyed the second paragraph of one of his novels although he couldnt remember which.
The lucky recipients, who included poets Paul Farley and Vicki Feaver and novelists Catherine Chidgey and Eliot Perlman, didnt go home quite as rich as the winner of the Impac Prize, announced in Dublin on the same day.
Beating an international shortlist which featured the likes of Don DeLillo, Ian McEwan and Bernhard Schlink, Bristol-born writer Andrew Miller collected a cool IR£100,000 a sum that makes the Impac the worlds richest literary prize.
Given the colossal amount of moolah on offer, why doesnt the prize attract more attention? One answer is that the original nominations are made by public libraries in over 50 countries, a vast judging machine that casts its eye over more than the recent past. Consequently, Miller wins for Ingenious Pain, first published two years ago, and succeeded last year by his second novel, Casanova; McEwan is shortlisted for Enduring Love, having won the Booker Prize for the subsequent Amsterdam; and Jim Crace pops up with Quarantine, shortlisted for the Booker in 1997.
Nothing wrong with reminding us that the past extends beyond the last few weeks book launches, of course, but a little confusing, none the less.
A whisper reaches us that Scottish novelist Andrew OHagan is to become film critic for the Daily Telegraph and up sticks to LA. Of course, he cant possibly go anywhere before his term as Writer-in-Residence at the Royal Festival Hall and the Hayward Gallery has ended, although its not too much of a commitment, lasting merely for the duration of the Cities on the Move exhibition.
Meanwhile, his fondness for cinema is evident in his enthusiastic endorsement of the exhibitions aims: "I used to dream of being a flying camera," he tells us, "over the tops of cities, the long swoop into lanes, under bridges, over railway stations ...". Giving a whole new meaning to the idea of being high as a kite.
Penguin have gone straight to the top to plug their relaunch of P G Wodehouses backlist, including with their press release a photocopied letter from none other than Tony Blair. Unsurprisingly, the great man proves himself to be adept at the art of marketing-speak.
"Someone once wrote," he tells us, "that the world was divisible into people who liked P.G. Wodehouses stuff, and those who didnt. New Labour is, of course, more inclusive than that. But I know what they meant."
He also gives an insight into his moments of relaxation: "I re-read Wodehouse whenever the work pressure gets hard." And we always thought he read religious tracts in moments of leisure.
