[The short story form] is intimate, it’s intense, it’s highly flexible, it’s the ultimate test of naked prose with nowhere to hide. - A.L. Kennedy speaking exclusively to Transmission, May 2006.
In separate interviews for Transmission #05, Scottish author and broadsheet journalist, A.L. Kennedy, asks just how ‘fair’ the Man Booker Prize is, while Granta-nominated Best Young British Novelist, Toby Litt, urges fellow writers not to lose hope in an industry in crisis.
A.L. Kennedy was a judge for the Man Booker Prize in 1996, an award she considered corrupt. ‘The year I judged the Booker the judges were openly agreed that a book other than the winner was the best book. I found that hard to stomach,’ she says in her exclusive interview with Transmission. She is also critical of booksellers and publishers, who, she argues, are giving readers less choice and poorer quality books. Toby Litt is dismissive of a publishing industry that focuses solely on ‘the market’, and gives advice to would-be authors, encouraging them not to write for specific markets but to continually experiment with their own writing.
Transmission #05 also includes debut novelist Ray Robinson, speaking about his experience of getting published for the first time, exclusively for the Writer’s Block section. There is also the usual high standard of short fiction, illustration and reviews.