Latest / Bookies' Favourite / Queen Mary Small Press Fiction Prize 2026 | Long List Reaction

Transcript

Queen Mary Small Press Fiction Prize 2026 | Long List Reaction · Bookies' Favourite

• 0:08
  I'm Aaron, You might know me from bookies.
• 0:11
  Favorite. And I'm Jake, you don't know me,
• 0:13
  but you will in our new book podcast, The Novel Series.
• 0:16
  We read book series to completion, one book per
• 0:19
  episode, 1 episode a month. From prequels to sequels, sagas
• 0:23
  to spin offs, we'll cover it all.
• 0:25
  Each episode we'll have a first edition reader stepping into the
• 0:28
  series for the first time and a rotating panel of novel guest
• 0:32
  superfans who've already completed the series.
• 0:35
  We launched mid February with On the Calculation of Volume by
• 0:38
  Solve Bala, a 7 novel Danish series with major award
• 0:42
  recognition. Join the club and read book one
• 0:44
  along with. Us find the novel series
• 0:46
  wherever you listen to your podcast.
• 0:48
  Subscribe to hear our first episode new.
• 0:50
  Episodes on the 15th of each month.
• 0:52
  Same day, same series, new book. The novel series.
• 0:56
  Where the story continues. Hello.
• 1:11
  Hi. We're.
• 1:13
  Back there. Hi, we are moving away from the
• 1:21
  Booker Prize for the first time on this podcast.
• 1:25
  We are moving on to the Queen Mary Prize and Hannah.
• 1:30
  Sorry, sorry, Lucy, I I know I'm interrupting you, but Hannah, do
• 1:34
  you want to provide an alternative pronunciation?
• 1:37
  Oh yeah, So for everyone else out there, it's called the Queen
• 1:40
  Mary. I've been slated for my
• 1:42
  pronunciation of Mary and I I'm just stating it how it's
• 1:46
  written, but OK, you guys have gone for an opted for different
• 1:51
  pronunciation. I I feel like I could just go
• 1:54
  between. I don't feel allegiance to
• 1:56
  either, you know, I feel like. People should just keep tuning
• 1:59
  in to see, you know what 1 you choose each week, Lucy.
• 2:03
  A Mary and Mary can't keep keep track.
• 2:08
  So this this award is the new name for the previously named
• 2:15
  Republic of Consciousness Prize. And this is specifically for
• 2:20
  small publishers, small presses. They've announced their long
• 2:25
  list, which is 10 books. And juicy juicy long list too I
• 2:29
  think. Very exciting and interesting
• 2:32
  thing now that we we've become kind of aficionados of the the
• 2:36
  latest fiction. We've already read 1 and we've
• 2:39
  already discussed it on the podcast.
• 2:41
  We've already done Small Boats by Vincent Delacroix, and if you
• 2:44
  cannot wait for any of our episodes, I'd advise just go in
• 2:48
  and tuning in to that one because it's yeah, it's, it's
• 2:53
  all right. It's an all right episode, not.
• 2:55
  Only is this the first time that we're moving away from a Booker
• 2:59
  award, but this is the first time that we are covering a long
• 3:03
  list instead of a short list. So we're, we're not going to do
• 3:07
  every single book on the long list because we don't have
• 3:10
  enough time. But including small boat, we
• 3:14
  will cover 6 books out of the 10.
• 3:19
  And so hopefully the the winner will be in, in those six.
• 3:23
  And we've each picked one choice each for which book from the
• 3:29
  long list we would like to cover.
• 3:31
  And then the final book we will pick from the shortlist when
• 3:34
  that's announced. And just to give us the the best
• 3:37
  chances of having read the the winner.
• 3:41
  The first book on the long list is Tooth pull of Saint Dustin by
• 3:46
  Kevin Davey, and that is that's been published by our press.
• 3:53
  That's that's core A and it took me a while to find out that
• 3:58
  that's based in Ipswich in England, and it seems like a
• 4:02
  really wild book. The reason I was not keen to
• 4:06
  read it because years and years and years ago I chipped my tooth
• 4:12
  and it's re chipped this week. So it's like.
• 4:16
  Oh no, to real. It's like my front teeth as
• 4:18
  well. So it's it's I've got like
• 4:20
  another two weeks to wait for getting it redone on the
• 4:23
  dentist. So I'm not feeling reading any
• 4:26
  that is. Totally fair.
• 4:27
  Involving. Teeth.
• 4:29
  The cover is atrocious. It's terrifying.
• 4:32
  I think it sounds really wild because it's like a bite like
• 4:35
  the format like Canterbury or something.
• 4:38
  And it's about the description of it.
• 4:41
  The Queen Mary press sent out like a big list of 1 sub stack
• 4:45
  of all the the different books and like descriptions of them.
• 4:48
  And I thought that seemed like a particularly wild one.
• 4:52
  Next on the list is Daryl by Jackie S and it's published by
• 4:56
  Divided Publishing. And it it's interesting and it
• 4:59
  was almost my pick because I think it's just I'm so intrigued
• 5:02
  by this story. It's about this this man called
• 5:06
  Daryl and his wife and him, well, they have cuckolding,
• 5:12
  cuckolding relationship, sexual relationship.
• 5:15
  And he likes to watch as sexual acts happen to his wife, but he
• 5:21
  begins to fall for one of these men.
• 5:24
  And I think it's a whole exploration of sexuality and
• 5:29
  masculinity and power and those sorts of things.
• 5:31
  It sounded really interesting, but maybe it's not.
• 5:33
  Maybe it's a little NSFW, you know, Maybe it's a bit too
• 5:36
  extreme for Boogie's favorites. I know it's like my mum listened
• 5:39
  to this podcast. Exactly even.
• 5:42
  Your description, Colin. I didn't.
• 5:46
  Fight for my mother. Bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep,
• 5:49
  bleep. Next on the long list is the
• 5:53
  first Jasmine's by Saima Begum and that's from Hejar Press.
• 5:58
  So this one focuses on East Pakistan in 1971 and involves 2
• 6:04
  Sisters. So it seems that they must
• 6:06
  choose between heartbreak and secrecy to return from an
• 6:09
  unspoken violence. I don't know.
• 6:11
  This one didn't overly like speak to me.
• 6:13
  I'm not gonna lie. I as soon as I seen one title in
• 6:16
  the list, I sounded funny to me. I just immediately was like,
• 6:19
  I'll pick this book. So I didn't overly look at any
• 6:21
  of the rest of it. So I know my best advice why I
• 6:26
  didn't use this. But yeah, I like the cover
• 6:29
  though, it's quite simple. I went on a bit of a deep dive
• 6:33
  with the press had had jar press.
• 6:36
  It looks so interesting, like I think this is something really
• 6:38
  interesting about the Queen Mary Prize.
• 6:42
  Is that it? Like, like, I would never have
• 6:45
  heard of this press, but I've ordered that book so I think it
• 6:48
  sounds really interesting. Next on the long list we have
• 6:50
  Mistress Koharu by Niboru Tushahara, translated by Kalau
• 6:56
  Almani from Huntford Star. So this one actually seems
• 7:00
  interesting and I think it's on the radar of of all of us and
• 7:04
  but nobody. Did pick it, yeah.
• 7:06
  Yes, I I nearly picked it as well, but none of us did pick
• 7:10
  this as our choice. And so basically it's about a
• 7:14
  man who has purchased, invested in a doll for his lonely nights
• 7:26
  and now, now the doll has gained sentience and like partakes in
• 7:33
  her own life. That's an an interesting route
• 7:37
  to go down with the story and I think that would provide lots of
• 7:42
  of conversation for us. Never podcast for my mum not to
• 7:46
  listen to. So Hunford Star specializes in
• 7:51
  East Asian literature. So I think all of us enjoyed
• 7:57
  Under the Eye of the Big Bird previously.
• 7:59
  I don't know if we've ever really got into any other East
• 8:03
  Asian literature on the podcast and but.
• 8:06
  I've read so many like translated ones in my own free
• 8:09
  time so like I automatically was like oh should I pick this one?
• 8:13
  It was really hard to pass up. A Ghost Driver by Nell Osborne,
• 8:19
  which is published by Moist Books, which is a horrific name
• 8:23
  for a press or alternatively quite catchy and.
• 8:28
  But yeah, I don't know how that came about, but it's from
• 8:31
  Nottingham. A lot of these presses seem to
• 8:34
  be English this year, last year was won by a press in Sligo.
• 8:39
  And so it's interesting that I don't think there's an option
• 8:42
  for, I don't think Ireland, Wales or Scotland or and any of
• 8:48
  them, it's all, All England. Just on that point, and this
• 8:52
  book award is specifically for books that were published in the
• 8:56
  UK and Ireland. There is a North American
• 9:00
  version of this award that still goes by the name the Republic of
• 9:04
  Consciousness US and Canada, and that is ongoing currently as
• 9:09
  well with a completely different long list and short list.
• 9:13
  And I think it's some some form of Horror Story and part are
• 9:17
  sorry, part tragic comic nightmare, which is what
• 9:20
  Goodreads has. And it is a slim shudder of a
• 9:23
  novel about a woman who has taken every wrong turn available
• 9:26
  to her. I actually think it does sound
• 9:28
  very interesting. And then we also have A Small
• 9:30
  Boat by Vincent de la Croix, translated by Helen Stevenson
• 9:33
  from Small Axes Hope Road. As we have said, we already did
• 9:39
  an episode on that. We will be bringing you an
• 9:41
  episode on that again for this long list.
• 9:46
  Just reexamining the book a year on basically, and that is about
• 9:54
  an emergency call from a migrant boat across the English Channel
• 10:00
  to a woman in France and the French.
• 10:05
  She basically is refusing to send assistance, claiming that
• 10:09
  it's the English responsibility to help these migrants out of
• 10:14
  their sinking boat. It's it's definitely an
• 10:17
  emotional book, but I think we all had a good discussion about
• 10:21
  it last time. So check that episode out.
• 10:24
  Let's now jump into the books that we have chosen from this
• 10:28
  long list. As we said, each of us have
• 10:30
  picked one that that we are going to cherish and nurture.
• 10:36
  Basically the list came out OK and I'm one for a title and this
• 10:39
  one is called The Weasel and the Whore and I was like sold.
• 10:42
  Don't even know what it needs to read about it.
• 10:44
  I'm just sold on this title. Umm.
• 10:47
  So yes, I decided to choose The Weasel and the Whore by Martha
• 10:52
  Luisa Hernandez Cadenas, and it's translated by Julia Sanchez
• 10:59
  and Jennifer Shue, and it's from Eloise.
• 11:04
  So I love books about like, South America and all things
• 11:09
  like that. So this book offers a stark
• 11:11
  underground portrait of contemporary Cuba or Cuba where
• 11:16
  the revolution's legacy still shapes young lives.
• 11:20
  And at its center we have our character Mary.
• 11:23
  So she said to be a talented artist who's moving through the
• 11:26
  circles of Havana. And from Monday to Saturday, she
• 11:30
  creates, she rebels, she survives within her city's
• 11:34
  creative underground. But then on Sundays, she becomes
• 11:38
  basically the sexual property of a powerful regime official.
• 11:43
  And it kind of we it says that we kind of follow Mary, who's
• 11:49
  supposed to be an outspoken artist and she's alienated from
• 11:53
  Castroism and she drifts towards social exclusion and she's
• 11:58
  caught between survival and escape.
• 12:00
  And she question begins to question whether there's any
• 12:04
  reason left to say in the country that she calls home.
• 12:07
  And I literally read that and was like soul love it.
• 12:09
  The title, what it's about. Very excited about it.
• 12:13
  For my pick for this competition, I have gone with
• 12:17
  Spit by David Brennan and it's published by Epoche Press.
• 12:23
  Uh, and it's set in the tone of spit in Ireland and it follows
• 12:29
  the people in this community after some serious death
• 12:32
  happens. But the spook of spit, some sort
• 12:35
  of supernatural creature is, uh, the point of view of the story
• 12:40
  is like the narr narrator of the story.
• 12:42
  And they go around, uh, being drawn to the different, uh,
• 12:47
  people in this town, sort of exploring, uh, how this thing
• 12:51
  has affected them. I don't know much beyond that.
• 12:53
  I'm excited for it though, because we love a little
• 12:56
  supernatural twist and we're also very biased to Ireland for
• 13:01
  some, some reasons. So very excited for this one.
• 13:06
  My book pick is on the Greenwich Line by Shady Lewis, and that's
• 13:10
  translated by Catherine Halls and it is by Pyrene Press in
• 13:16
  Bath. And it's basically about a
• 13:21
  Egyptian living in East London. And he works in the housing
• 13:26
  office. And he is kind of become
• 13:28
  embroiled in the the death of a Syrian refugee in London whose
• 13:34
  family are currently in Egypt. And it's just that he's 20 years
• 13:38
  old. And this, our protagonist finds
• 13:41
  himself in a situation where he's having to organize the
• 13:44
  funeral for this boy. And it's quite, I've started
• 13:48
  reading it already and it is pretty funny.
• 13:51
  And I'm excited to see what you guys all think about.
• 13:53
  It's pretty short. So yeah, I I think it's going to
• 13:56
  be really good. So the final book of the long
• 13:59
  list and the one that I have chosen that we will cover on the
• 14:02
  podcast is titled Figures Crossing the Field Towards the
• 14:06
  Group by Rebecca Grandstand from Tangerine Press.
• 14:12
  This seems to be an apocalyptic story based in England and there
• 14:18
  seems to be some red spores are spreading.
• 14:21
  Northwood, Northwood. Northwood, Northwoods and
• 14:26
  Tangerine Press is based in London.
• 14:29
  I don't really have much else to say.
• 14:31
  Oh, they have been known to dabble in 1970s pornography and
• 14:38
  the occasional book burning too. Interesting.
• 14:42
  So I'm excited for this. It's giving me vibes of 28 days
• 14:47
  later and with the the movies kind of having come out
• 14:53
  recently, I was just feeling this.
• 14:56
  So I'm definitely excited to to dive into that.
• 15:00
  So there you have it, there's the the four books that will the
• 15:04
  five books that we will be covering including a small boat
• 15:09
  and then one of the other long listed books we will be covering
• 15:13
  as well when the shortlist is announced.
• 15:16
  The winner of this prize will be announced on the 25th of March
• 15:20
  and we are going to upload a book review every Monday between
• 15:24
  now and then. So join us.
• 15:28
  We're not 100% sure for what our reading schedule is going to be
• 15:32
  just quite yet. Because they are from
• 15:34
  independent presses, it means that the books are going to be a
• 15:38
  little bit more difficult to grab hold of.
• 15:41
  I went to a water stones shop today and I could not find any
• 15:45
  of the 10 books in the in the shop.
• 15:49
  So we we have to see what books we can get our hands on 1st and
• 15:54
  then we will establish a reading list.
• 15:56
  If you haven't read Small Boat you can start with that one.
• 15:59
  Our episode will be coming out on Monday.
• 16:02
  With that and pay attention to our social media, where we will
• 16:05
  announce the rest of the reading schedule.
• 16:09
  How funny would it be if the ones we picked were the ones
• 16:11
  that ended up being on like the shortlist?
• 16:14
  That would make Lifeway easier. These five small boat and or 4
• 16:20
  choices. Yeah, that's the short list in
• 16:23
  our heads. You can find me on Instagram at
• 16:28
  Aaron Rice Media. You can also find me Lucy at
• 16:34
  Books 2026, but that's Books with AZ because books with an S
• 16:40
  is already taken. You can find me Colin at C under
• 16:44
  score. F under score rights, so CF
• 16:47
  rights. And you can find me Hannah at
• 16:50
  Certified Book Yapper Hannah. And you can find all of us at
• 16:55
  Boogie's favorite book club on Instagram.
• 16:58
  Thanks very much for listening. We hope that you join us reading
• 17:02
  these long listed books. Share your thoughts.
• 17:06
  All of the details are in the description below.
• 17:08
  Bookies.