The case of the winner Brontëite

Our congratulations to Robert Barnard, winner of the CWA Short Story Award:

The winner of this year’s CWA Short Story Awards was announced at a dinner as part of the Off The Shelf festival in Sheffield on October 18.

Robert Barnard beat the competition to take the £1500 prize for his story Sins of Scarlet in the CWA anthology edited by Martin Edwards, ID: Crimes of Identity, published by Comma Press. The story was commended by the judges as: “The ultimate in locked room murders, set in the Sistine Chapel during an election of a Pope.” (...)

Receiving his award, Robert Barnard said: “This is utterly delightful. I’ve had nominations in the US – and won – but they’ve never had any money attached . . . (Sins of Scarlet) was intended as a full-length novel but I don’t like novels that have only one sex in them and thought it came better as a short story.” He also revealed that the story had been turned down by a leading US short story magazine. “They loved it, but wouldn’t publish it - it was too offensive to too many people . . . which was very sad. It’s a very nice story and I did enjoy writing it.”

Robert Barnard is a former chairman of the Brontë Society, author of several Brontë-related books:

The Case of the Missing Brontë (1983)
The Corpse at the Haworth Tandoori (1999)
Emily Brontë (2000) (British Library Writers' Lives)

Categories: In_the_News, Brontëites