Introducing Sebastian Faulks to Sardines

I’m honoured to be the recipient of the First Pages Prize in 2020. Now in its third year, this competition supports emerging writers worldwide with its annual prize for the first five pages of a longer work of fiction or creative non-fiction. This year, award-winning author Sebastian Faulks OBE, joined the international judging panel. It’s hard to describe my emotions after receiving the call to say I’d won the competition. Given we were still in lockdown, it was as though my ‘bubble’ transmuted to take up residence in my chest, a constant companion releasing celebratory bursts of joy — perhaps while cooking a meal, out walking, writing or reading a book — an infectious feeling, the best possible kind in these strange times, a feeling that’s stayed with me. 

I’m delighted that Sebastian Faulks, an author I much admire, gave sardines the stamp of approval. Not only did he feel assured from my first pages that I knew my characters, but he said my words transported him to an unfamiliar setting, the Jadranka sardine factory on the island of Korčula, mirroring his advice for candidates planning to enter next year’s competition — that they should attempt to take the reader to somewhere new. He advised writers that their first pages would rarely remain at the beginning of a completed novel and this is certainly true for The Telling Time; my very first words, penned five years ago, are now loosely embedded on page 160, at the mid-point of the novel. 

 For me though, his words rang true for another reason. Back in February, when I submitted the sardines chapter for the competition, I had been experimenting with a new structure on the back of a suggestion from my editor, Stephen Stratford. In the end, my convoluted attempts to bring the sardines chapter forward didn’t work and I resigned myself to reverting to my original script where sardines appeared much later. Shortly afterwards we locked down for Covid-19. 

 On the morning of May 1st, when the news of the longlist broke, my sense of elation turned to a niggle when I realised that sardines were no longer my opening pages. 

I mentioned this to lawyer husband, John, 

‘You’re kidding me . . .?’ he said, his look saying it all. 

‘It’ll be fine,’ I said, my conviction waning further, ‘they were my first pages back then and everyone knows how the beginning of a novel can change . . .’

But ‘back then’ was only February, and now, just months later, The Telling Time was with the Yourbooks design team (a decision made when Covid-19 struck, when life felt fragile, when it seemed important not to delay publication) and the novel was almost set to go to the printer — could this mean disqualification? 

 Over the next week sardines continued to gnaw, so much so that I placed a hold on Yourbooks and focused on finding a solution. Fortunately, moving the chapter back up front proved less complicated than I’d originally thought and what’s more, I was delighted with the result. It didn’t matter that when I finally got to check the rules with the competition organisers, they said the change wouldn’t have mattered. I prefer to think of it as serendipity, that the First Pages Prize played its part in reinstating sardines to their rightful place.

 Not only has winning this prize given me the reassurance that I have a good product to share, it has also reaffirmed the importance of following your instincts. Covid-19 allowing, I hope I might be able to take up the First Pages Prize invitation to join them at next year’s ceremony in Paris. Meanwhile, I will make do with channeling my inner Paris and celebrating here in New Zealand. Sebastian Faulks is oblivious to all this of course, but it’s interesting to note his comment regarding the The Telling Time, and the three other winning entries — his feeling that from those first pages they all had the potential to become novels — that there were bigger stories to be told. Come August, Sebastian Faulks might just receive a printed copy of The Telling Time, just to confirm that from sardines the story did go on.

 Visit www.firstpagesprize.com for more information on this competition.