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This is a story I've never told anyone.
In 2014 I received an email.
'Hi Roz, I'm a judge at the World Fantasy Award. I thought you'd like to know Lifeform Three reached the longlist and we debated it at length for the final prize. Ultimately we passed because we felt it was more science fiction than fantasy. But we liked Lifeform Three very much indeed, which I thought you deserved to know.'
Wow. I did some googling. Yes, it was real.
Wow #2: The winners that year included Neil Gaiman and Jeff Vandermeer.
Wow #3 Previous and later winners included Peter Carey, David Mitchell.
And Lifeform Three was in the room with them.
Then came the kicker.
I'm afraid you can't do anything with this information. If anybody finds out I told you, I might lose my job.'

I mentioned it in secret (and anguish) to close friends.
Mostly, they said: 'To hell with the warning. Why did they even email you? Tell the world. Think what it'll do for your career.'
To this day, I think about it. My nomination never appeared on the official materials. No one ever knew. Only I knew, with my incendiary email.
But I couldn't put somebody's livelihood in jeopardy.
Now, plenty of time has passed; I'm safer to tell the full story, though you'll notice that I'm still not naming names, or even genders. A promise is a promise, even though I had no say in the matter.
(I can provide additional proof if anyone really wants it!)
 
Anyway, this week, at the London Book Fair, there's been a set of awards to find quality self-published novels, the Bookbrunch Selfies. Here's the winner Jane Davis, and it's brilliant to see proper recognition for all her grit and dedication (she has written a moving reaction here). Let's hope this makes the books world take a fresh look at the work of professional indies.
And with that in mind, I thought I'd make a proper celebration of my surreal near-miss in 2014.
I'm having a flash sale of the Kindle edition of Lifeform Three. If you haven't yet read it, you can grab it now for 99c until Sunday night. If you want to urge a friend to try it, this is their chance to get it for a song.
Back with a proper newsletter at the usual time. Til then
R xxx
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Copyright © 2019 Roz Morris, All rights reserved.


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