Stirling author in the running for national award
A Stirling author’s latest book has made it into the Winter Final of a national literary competition.
RJ Mitchell’s ‘The Blood Acre’ is one of three books in the season’s shortlist for The People’s Book Prize,
‘The Blood Acre’ is set in 1990 and carries on from the 1989 framed
‘The Shift’ which was runner-up in The People’s Book Prize in 2017 and polled more than 11,000 votes from across the UK.
RJ Mitchell, known as Bert, is hoping that the Winter shortlisting will take him on to the final of the competition.
He said: “It’s always nice to get a bit of recognition and given The People’s Book Prize is the biggest public vote book competition in the UK it’s a nice feeling.
“Basically what happens next is that the public have the chance to vote for The Blood Acre by using the link on The People’s Book Prize website.”
The winner of the competition will be announced at the grand final at The Stationer’s Hall, near St Paul’s Cathedral in London next year.
Bert added: “I have fond memories of the competition from 2017 when the previous book in my DS Thoroughgood series, ‘The Shift’, made the grand final and polled more than 11,000 votes to make it the UK wide runner-up and it would be great to make it back there.
“That was at the same time one of the best and most disappointing night’s of my writing career, in that I got to meet a bit of a literary hero of mine the immortal Frederick Forsyth, who hosted the event but then came up just short in the competition.
“But now I need anyone out there who has read and enjoyed ‘The Blood Acre’ to back me with their vote which I can assure them will be very much appreciated. And then it will be a case of crossing my fingers as I know the competition in the fiction category will be intense.”
Bert is currently on a book signing tour for ‘The Blood Acre’ at WHSmith branches across the country.
He said: “Things have been going really well and I am delighted to say that after 11 stops we have broken the 500 mark in sales and hopefully are on course to reach the 1000 mark when I finish up at Stirling WHSmith on the Sunday before Christmas
I need anyone out there who has read and enjoyed ‘The Blood Acre’ to back me with their vote which I can assure them will be very much appreciated.