Congratulations to our 2011 winner, Emily Bullock, whose second novel is published today.
The novel, Inside the Beautiful Inside, is based on the true story of James Norris an American marine who was chained to a stake for fourteen years in Bethlem Hospital for the Insane in London in the early nineteenth century.
It has been receiving great reviews already: The Observer calls is “Startlingly original and poetic—Bullock combines horror and brutality with unexpected moments of tenderness .” while Nick Rennison reviewing it in The Sunday Times, says “The voice she (Bullock) gives to Norris as memories and delusions meld in his disintegrating mind is a haunting one.”
We wish Emily huge success with the novel and hope it finds many, many readers.
Emily won the 2011 Bristol Short Story Prize with her story, My Girl. She was signed by the Johnson & Alcock literary agency after her BSSP win and went on to have her first novel, The Longest Fight, published by Myriad Editions in 2015. It was shortlisted for the Cross Sports Book Awards and listed in The Independent’s Paperbacks of the Year.
Emily’s 2011 BSSP winning story is available in our Volume 4 anthology, here: https://www.tangentbooks.co.uk/shop/bristol-short-story-prize-volume-4