Former Creative Writing and English Literature student Anna Beecher was recently nominated for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award for her first novel, ‘Here Comes the Miracle’.
The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award is the UK and Ireland’s most influential prize for young writers, awarded for a full-length published or self-published work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry. It is an annual prize sponsored by the Sunday Times and the Charlotte Aitken Trust, a charitable organisation aiming to promote the creative arts and advance the public in literary education.
Administered by the Society of Authors, a UK trade union for all types of writers, illustrators and literary translators, the winner of the award will receive £10,000, with three prizes of £1,000 each for the runners-up.
Anna Beecher was nominated for her novel ‘Here Comes the Miracle’, her literary debut about a life cut short by cancer, and a love cut short by fear and social pressure. Anna is also a graduate of the Fiction MFA, a graduate creative writing programme, at the University of Virginia where she now holds a lectureship in creative prose writing, and has been named winner of the £10,000 Henfield Prize for Fiction at the University.
The University of Westminster spoke to Anna about her book and the nomination.
What was the inspiration behind the book?
“I began writing ‘Here Comes the Miracle’ a month after my brother, John Beecher, died of cancer. I was twenty-three, in my second year at Westminster and grappling with how to carry this shocking loss into the rest of my life. I didn't have a plan for the novel, I just began writing. I found myself writing about a young woman and her brother and an experience like the one my family had gone through, and a host of other characters, people in different eras and places, all building lives shaped by some kind of absence. It took a long period of experimenting to find the true shape of the book which revolves around four characters, brother and sister Joe and Emily and their grandparents Eleanor and Edward. We meet Joe and Emily in their twenties, during the final year of Joe's life. We follow Edward and Eleanor from youth to old age. By placing their stories side by side, I wanted to explore different types of loss and what it means to share one's life with another person, whether that life spans throughout decades or is cut short. Even though loss was my starting point, the novel is as much about joy and the fierce power of love.”
How does it feel to be nominated for this award?
“I feel honoured, excited and quite surprised! ‘Here Comes the Miracle’ was published during lockdown, when no book shops were open, so it had a bit of a quiet entry into the world. I hope this nomination will help it to reach readers who might not have heard of it before. I'm reading the other nominee’s books right now and really enjoying them, so I know I'm great company.”
How did the teachers at the University of Westminster help you to develop yourself as a writer?
“Many teachers at Westminster impacted me and my work and looking back, I feel especially grateful for the way they took my writing seriously and handled it with care. I worked with Michael Nath and a small group of other students during my final year on what would eventually become ‘Here Comes the Miracle’, and in the years that it took to complete the book I thought often of things he had said. He helped me understand that writing that flows out easily isn't necessarily better than writing which feels like effort to produce; it's about the reader's experience, not yours. That gave me the stamina and courage to actually finish the book. Dr Nath also spoke about the value of levity and 'giving characters gifts', especially in work which also holds sadness and pain. Above all I felt that he believed in my project and in me as a writer. Matthew Morrison was also a great teacher, as were many others I encountered at Westminster, both in Creative Writing and in English Literature. They encouraged me, supported me through a life-altering bereavement and gave me three years of space to explore my mind on the page.”
Find out more about English and Creative Writing.
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