Club news
Written by: Charlie
Announcing…
THE 2022 WINNER
The Rooker Prize is Lewes FC’s new international writing competition.
Entry was open to all Lewes FC owners, of which there are some 2,200 in 37 countries around the world. Would-be authors were asked to submit ‘The first 250 words of a novel, in the specified genre of their choice’.
The winning entry was selected by a panel of three judges:
Lewes FC director, Karen Dobres
Guardian journalist, Suzy Wrack
Author, Mark Crick
Karen commented: “Our club often makes the link between football and the wider world through culture, and The Rooker Prize is another manifestation of the way football reflects and impacts society, and has the power to bring communities of interest together.”
Mark added: “It was thrilling to see how many nascent novelists are lurking amongst the ownership of Lewes Football Club. Judging the short pieces critically has taught me a lot about my own writing style”.
And Suzy also commented: “It was an honour to judge the 17 entries for the inaugural Rooker Prize, and we had a lot of fun doing so. Not one entry did we consider bad or unworthy of a prize – every writer had potential.”
We are proud to announce that this year’s inaugural winner is… Southampton-based Lewes FC owner Duncan Brown. His book title was ‘Black Premonition’.
The other two entries on the judges’ final shortlist were, Biram Desai’s ‘Untitled science fiction’, and ‘Court of Crows’, Charlie Stubbs’ historical thriller.
‘Black Premonition’ was favoured by the judges for its descriptive power and imagery, and the fact that they were left eager to know what would happen next.
On accepting the award, Duncan commented: “I’m really ‘chough-ed’ as you might expect to receive an award called The Rooker Prize. I really enjoyed writing this piece. It was quite a change from my day job as a medieval archaeologist.”
The judges stated: “Brown’s piece seemed to answer all our criteria perfectly. We were looking at (i) the quality of writing, (ii) whether it made us feel more alive in some way, and (iii) asking ourselves how much we wanted to read the rest of the novel. Congratulations to Duncan, and thank you to all the Lewes owners who entered the first ever Rooker Prize”
You can read the winning entry and the two commended ones here: Rooker Prize 2022 winner + commended2
Brown wins the trophy and £250 to be donated to a charity of his choice.
If you’re not a Lewes FC Owner yet, just sign up here and get that entry in next April.